Aditya Chakrabortty - The fat cats have got their claws into Britain's universities
Academia’s unfolding tale of greed goes
beyond vice-chancellors’ salaries: it’s about how the decisions about their pay
are made, and by whom.. Seven out
of 10 vice-chancellors are either members of the committees that set their pay,
or can sit on them
Scandals aren’t meant
to happen in British universities. Parliament, tabloid newsrooms, the City …
those we expect to spew out sleaze. Not the gown-wearing, exam-sitting,
quiet-in-the-library surrounds of higher education. Yet we should all be
scandalised by what is happening in academia. It is a tale of vast greed and of
vandalism – and it is being committed right at the top, by the very people who
are meant to be custodians of these institutions. If it continues, it will
wreck one of the few world-beating industries Britain has left.
Big claims, I know,
but easily supportable. Let me start with greed. You may have heard of
Professor Dame Glynis Breakwell. As vice-chancellor of Bath University, her salary went up this year by £17,500 – which is to say,
she got more in just one pay rise than some of her staff earn in a year. Her
annual salary and benefits now total over £468,000, not including an
interest-free car loan of £31,000. Then there’s the £20,000 in expenses she
claimed last year, with almost £5,000 for the gas bill – and £2 for biscuits. I
knew there had to be a reason they call them rich tea. Breakwell is now the
lightning rod for Westminster’s fury over vice-chancellor pay. As the best paid
in Britain, she’s the vice-chancellor that Tony Blair’s former education
minister, Andrew Adonis, tweets angrily about. She’s the focus of a regulator’s
report that slams both her and the university. She’s already had to apologise
to staff and students for a lack of transparency in the university’s pay
processes – and may even be forced out this week.
But she’s not the only
one. The sector is peppered with other vice-chancellors on the make. At
Bangor University, John Hughes gets £245,000 a year – and lives in a
grace-and-favour country house that cost his university almost £750,000,
including £700-worth of Laura Ashley cushions. Two years ago, the University of
Bolton gave its head, George Holmes, a £960,000 loan to buy a mansion close by. The owner of both a yacht
and a Bentley, Holmes enjoys asking such questions as: “Do you want to be
successful or a failure?” Yet as the Times Higher Education observed recently, he counts as a failure,
having overseen a drop last year in student numbers, even while being awarded
an 11.5% pay rise.
Compare these fortunes
to that of rank-and-file university teachers, who have seen only a 1% rise in
their basic pay in the last year. Or consider that on the sector’s own
statistics, most academics are on some form of casual contract, including being paid by the hour for
marking and teaching. It is not uncommon in English and Welsh universities for
students to pay £9,000 a year to be taught by an academic who isn’t earning
that much. Reporting last year, I met one lecturer at a Russell Group
university who had until recently worked a total of five jobs a week, including
as a binman.
Bring up such examples
and the universities will spin you a version of what Rick Trainor, former
principal of King’s College London, once said: “If you want the best, you have
to pay the best.” What they won’t mention is the finding of the University and
College Union that more than seven out of 10 vice-chancellors are either
members of the committees that set their pay, or can sit on them – as Bath’s
Breakwell did. If this were just
about individual greed, we could sling out a few bad apples and carry on. But
what’s rotten in universities is the rules observed by the people at the
top. And what’s at risk is the reputation of our entire
higher education system... read more:
