Very pampered vice chancellors

Uni chiefs on £450,000 get free gardening and cleaning

FAT cat bosses at top universities are having their council tax and utility bills, as well as gardening and cleaning costs, paid as a perk at their grace-and-favour accommodation.

Vice-chancellors, deans and presidents at 40 institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, receive the benefits in addition to salaries of up to £450,000 a year.

In some cases, the perks extend to housekeepers employed to do washing and ironing. The combined cost of all bills paid on their behalf came to £331,000 during the last academic year.

A freedom of information request found 35 university bosses had utility bills paid, while 32 were covered for council tax and 30 had cleaning and/or gardening costs paid. In 25 cases, all three types of costs were paid.

The University and College Union (UCU), which represents higher education staff, said the perks amounted to ‘embarrassing largesse’ at a time when most university employees have seen their pay fall in real terms and students are facing rising tuition fees.

Among those benefiting are the country’s top- earning academic Dame Glynis Breakwell, vice- chancellor at the University of Bath. She is paid £451,000 and has been provided with a five-bedroom home in one of the spa town’s sought-after Georgian terraces. As well as council tax and utilities, the university spent £8,738 on cleaning costs for her property, including a housekeeper ‘ responsible for bed linen, washing and ironing’.

Other top earners who benefit include London Business School dean Sir Andrew Likierman, the University of Oxford’s Louise Richardson, the University of Birmingham’s Sir David Eastwood, and Sir Keith Burnett of the University of Sheffield. All four are paid around £400,000 and are given rent-free homes as well as hav- ing domestic bills covered. The Open University, ranked 52nd in The Times’ latest listings, paid out £3,246 for council tax, £ 3,209 for utility bills and £16,217 for cleaning and gardening costs for the home occupied by former BBC news executive Peter Horrocks, its vice-chancellor since 2014. He receives an annual salary of more than £200,000.

The university, based in Milton Keynes, said it has full responsibility for the exterior and grounds of the house but that the running costs of the interior are split and Mr Horrocks contributes.

Sally Hunt, of the UCU, said the figures ‘will be unedifying news for staff who have seen their pay fall in real terms and their bills rise’.

She added: ‘ This kind of largesse continues to embarrass the sector and reveals its leaders as out of touch.’

The union says salaries for lecturers and staff have fallen in real terms by 16 per cent since 2009 due to pay freezes and small rises set against rising inflation and living costs.

John O’Connell, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘ Students are paying huge sums for their education on top of the taxpayer subsidy universities receive, and the least we should expect is that that money goes into education. Why shouldn’t vice- chancellors have to pay their bills like everyone else?’

Sorana Vieru, of the National Union of Students, said such perks at institutions ‘funded partially by the public and by fees of struggling students [are] a kick in the teeth – it’s wrong’.

Universities UK – an umbrella group of higher education institutions – said that because senior officials are often required to live in university-owned properties, and have other homes elsewhere, it was right for bills to be covered.

It added that parts of the homes are often used for business meetings, university functions and accommodating overnight guests.

‘Largesse reveals leaders out of touch’