Slash university fatcats’ salaries, urges minister

Pay can’t be justified, vice-chancellors told

UNIVERSITY bosses are overpaid and should have their wages cut, the universities minister said yesterday.

Michelle Donelan criticised universities that pay vice- chancellors more than double the Prime Minister’s salary and said their ‘wages should be justifiable’.

Vice-chancellors have come under fire in recent years over their massive pay packages, which exceed £500,000 for the country’s biggest earners.

Giving evidence to the Commons education select committee, Miss Donelan said moves to significantly reduce the pay of university bosses during the coronavirus pandemic should continue, with more leaders taking less.

She said: ‘I struggle to understand how we can justify vice-chancellors being paid two or three times the amount of the Prime Minister. I think we do have to question that.

‘We have seen in Covid some examples of universities coming forward and voluntarily making reductions, not just in vice- chancellors’ wages but also senior leadership wages, by 10 and up to 30 per cent, and I want to hopefully see that continue and be the start of something.’

The minister said universities received a ‘significant amount of public funding and funding from students and so I think vice-chancellors wages should be justifiable and should not be excessive’. The pandemic has had a massive impact on universities, who asked the Government for a £2 billion bailout in April to save their research programmes.

They also face a multi-billionpound hit if thousands of overseas students stay away during the next

‘Incredible that pay is so excessive’

academic year. A string of university chiefs have accepted substantial pay cuts to help offset the financial crisis.

By contrast, Professor Louise Richardson, vice- chancellor at Oxford, has retained her £452,000 pay package despite the institution using a taxpayer-funded scheme to furlough hundreds of academics.

The average pay of university vicechancellors is now more than £ 250,000, according to figures released by the Office for Students. Of the 133 universities across England, 124 pay their heads more than the £158,000 the Prime Minister earns. Five heads were earning more than £500,000 with benefits and severance payments included, according to the OfS analysis.

Education committee chairman Robert Halfon said: ‘At a time when students have to take out stonking loans, it seems incredible that vicechancellors’ pay is so excessive.’

He added: ‘Student loans should be funding good quality tuition and employment outcomes, not the lavish lifestyles of vice-chancellors.’