Oxford bursar hits out at high pay of his own vice-chancellor
AN OXFORD University bursar has slammed the ‘grossly excessive’ pay packet of his own vice-chancellor.
Attacking the university ‘gravy train’, New College bursar David Palfreyman said it was hard to see a ‘value for money return’ for the escalating pay of Oxford’s leaders or any ‘improvement in governance’.
He also questioned the need for pro-vice chancellors, who act as deputies, and said they were a ‘cadre of costly helpers’.
Oxford’s vice-chancellor Louise Richardson earns £350,000 a year, which rises to around £410,000 including pension.
Meanwhile 450 other senior staff are on more than £100,000. It comes amid a growing row over vice-chancellors’ pay, with universities minister Jo Johnson calling for an end to the ‘endless upwards ratchet’ of salaries.
A large portion of university funding comes from student fees, which rise to £9,250 a year next month.
Supporters of Professor Richardson say she is modestly paid compared with the UK’s top bankers.
But Mr Palfreyman, who has been his college’s bursar since 1988, yesterday branded the comparison ‘silly’. In a letter to the Financial Times, he said: ‘No sane person could dispute that top bankers are egregiously overpaid, but their daft pay is no reason for VCs to be put on the same gravy train, albeit in a third-class compartment.’
He explained that before the year 2000, Oxford had ‘got by for eight centuries with the cheapest vice-chancellor in the land’.
This involved ‘rotating in’ a head of house for two to four-year periods and paying them ‘a modest £100,000’ in 2017 terms, he said. ‘We now pay four times as much… and surround this five to sevenyear chief executive with a proliferating cadre of costly helpers as pro vice-chancellors; but few in Oxford would be able to detect any improvement in our governance and management resulting
‘Few would detect value for money’
from these “reforms” – or indeed any value-for-money return for this grossly excessive spend on “the senior management team”.’
Professor Richardson’s pay is less than her predecessor, Andrew Hamilton, who took home £462,000 a year including pension before he left in December 2015. Terrorism expert Professor Richardson, 59, is Oxford’s first female vice-chancellor and held the same role at St Andrews where she was engulfed in controversy in 2014. Then First Minister Alex Salmond was alleged to have spent ten minutes on the phone trying to persuade her to tone down warnings about the adverse impact of a Yes vote.
He is believed to have taken exception to remarks Professor Richardson had made a year earlier warning that independence could prove ‘catastrophic’ for St Andrews if it threatened access to £3billion of scientific research handed out each year by the UK.
Leaked emails revealed how his special adviser, Geoff Aberdein, urged Professor Richardson to attack the Westminster government over funding for higher education. But in a reply, she wrote: ‘I’m sorry but I’m afraid I cannot agree to this statement.’
The Mail has revealed how Craig Calhoun, the former vice-chancellor of the London School of Economics, was paid £1.7million over four years despite it scoring only a bronze in official teaching ranks.
Vice-chancellor of Bolton University George Holmes defended his £222,000 pay saying university bosses are not paid enough compared to those in other countries.
An Oxford spokesman said: ‘Oxford is the world’s highestranked university... delivering outstanding teaching and adding £5.8billion to the UK economy every year. The university’s international success is delivered by competing with other globally pre-eminent universities to attract top … talent. The remuneration of the vice-chancellor reflects this.’