University defends £50,000 hotel and flight bill in wake of report
A YORKSHIRE university has defended its vice chancellor’s jetset lifestyle after a new report revealed he had spent almost £50,000 on business class flights and hotels.
Professor Sir Keith Burnett, vice chancellor at The University of Sheffield, racked up a total bill of £24,598 on flights in the last academic year and £24,433 on hotels – the highest in the country.
It also emerged that he was the UK’s tenth best paid university head, with a salary of £422,706.
However, a spokesperson for Sheffield University, which has an annual turnover of around £660m, argued that the wage reflected the importance attached to having a leader who was “highly respected both in the UK and internationally”.
And the large amount of money spent on flights and hotels was due to the vice chancellor’s efforts to form partnerships overseas, including India and China.
The spokesperson said: “As leader of a global university with a strong focus on international partnerships, the University of Sheffield president and vice chancellor personally leads the university’s work on international partnerships and development overseas.
“This involved securing new university relationships in Nanjing and Shanghai, including a new teaching collaboration in science, and a ground-breaking manufacturing partnership with the Chinese space programme. The vice chancellor visited India with a focus on science and innovation, including with the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
“Within the UK, the vice chancellor serves as a senior adviser to a number of educational and science-based bodies, including the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, the Royal Society and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.”
Yesterday The Yorkshire Post reported that university bosses had taken home salary packages worth more than a quarter of a million pounds on average last year. It follows the publication of a report by the University College Union (UCU), which is concerned about “huge disparities” in pay and called on the Government to step in and enforce proper scrutiny of salaries.