Salary row uni boss quits and pockets £243k
THE country’s highestpaid university chief announced last night that she will retire following months of calls for her to resign.
Dame Glynis Breakwell said she will leave her £468,000-a-year post in February 2019 – but the last six months will be spent on paid sabbatical.
As she will take her full salary until retiring, this means she will pocket £234,000 after stepping down from her official duties.
The vice chancellor – who earns three times more than the Prime Minister – was accused of ‘milking’ the University of Bath by exLabour education minister Lord Adonis.
Dame Glynis will also have a £31,489 car loan written off by the university she has headed for 17 years.
She lives in a £2million grace-and-favour townhouse and last year claimed £20,000 in expenses.
Critics have said it is wrong to enjoy such largesse when student fees have risen again to £9,250 a year and staff wages have been stagnant.
Lord Adonis said: ‘Right to the very end, she is milking the University of Bath for eve rything she can. The arrangements for her departure are scandalous and demonstrate the underlying problem of greed and lack of governance at Bath University.
‘It is absolutely unacceptable that the vice chancellor should be paid for six months for doing nothing after her retirement.
‘She should leave immediately and not hang around for another nine months during which the university will be able to make no reforms and do nothing to restore its reputation.’
Dame Glynis will step down as vice chancellor at the end of next August and ‘further her academic research’ during her sabbatical, the university said.
In a statement, Dame Glynis said: ‘I have served the university to the best of my ability and will continue to do so until the day I leave office. Since 2001, the university has changed dramatically. It has almost tripled in size and is now among the top universities in the UK.’
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union of lecturers, said yesterday: ‘This whole episode has shone an important light on the murky world of senior pay in our universities and it would be wrong to think that a change at the top of one institution solves that problem.’
‘Paid for months doing nothing’