University Principals (Pay)
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report in The Herald on 20 January 2014 on the pay of university principals. (S4T-00569)
As they are autonomous institutions, the salary levels of university principals and other senior staff are matters for each institution’s governing body and remuneration committee. However, I expect senior university management and governing bodies to demonstrate clear leadership and accountability by ensuring that pay awards to principals are not out of step with those that are available to staff and to ensure the highest standards of transparency as recommended by the von Prondzynski review of higher education governance in Scotland. I will re-emphasise that point at the university sector advisory forum’s next meeting.
I am delighted to hear that the minister will re-emphasise a point that he has already made. Does he not recognise the outrage that exists not only across the public sector but across Scotland at the above-inflation salary increases that have been awarded to senior management in universities, particularly given that they are already the highest paid public servants in Scotland? Two of those people have received increases of 11 and 24 per cent.
The cabinet secretary’s own review, which was chaired by Professor von Prondzynski, called for remuneration committees, which agree salary levels, to include members of staff and university students to increase transparency. Why has he not implemented that proposal?
The code of governance that the universities accepted at the end of that process makes it clear that there should be transparency in salary setting. There are issues about the involvement in salary boards of what are, essentially, in business terms, executive directors. Therefore, it is better for that work to be undertaken by independent voices.
I make it clear that I do not support or endorse what has taken place. If principals, as they do from time to time, ask my private advice on what they should do, my advice is unequivocal. They should do what has been done by Scottish Government ministers and right across the public sector: they should make sure that they show both restraint and leadership. They certainly should not allow themselves to be awarded pay increases that are massively out of step with the salary terms and conditions that are offered to their staff. I cannot be any clearer than that. Perhaps the member wants me to nationalise every Scottish university, but I seem to remember that his accusation was that I was interfering too much rather than too little.
To hear Mr Russell’s private advice when we are talking about public funds is not acceptable to the Parliament. This is a public matter—£500 million of public money goes to these institutions. Why does he think that he cannot intervene on the matter? It is not as though this would be the first time he has done so. He is quite prepared, for example, to intervene on local authorities, which are democratically elected, and set class sizes at a national level.
Last year, a report identified more than 8,500 people on zero-hours contracts in the university sector. Last year’s response to my freedom of information request revealed that severance pay over the past few years in the universities alone has amounted to £110 million, of which £34 million was spent on compulsory redundancies. If the cabinet secretary believes that he has a role in the matter, he should act. In particular, he should act on high pay. Is it the case that he cannot act or that he will not act?
The member’s indignation no doubt does him credit, but it does not address the practicalities of the issue. I repeat that universities are autonomous institutions. That is not a difficult concept. In those circumstances, universities are entitled to make their own decisions. Therefore, we need to show leadership in the matter. The Parliament has very effectively shown leadership on pay restraint. We also showed that restraint with those bodies for which we are responsible and which we control, although I must say that virtually all those bodies were willing to follow that restraint.
Institutions that are entirely free to make their own decisions should remain free to make their own decisions. If the member wants us to nationalise universities, I again challenge him to say so. I am unequivocal in my view that what we have seen is unacceptable. I have made that clear. I am also unequivocal in my view that, when I am asked for my advice, I give it. Here I am giving it in public, too, in case those principals who have not asked for my advice decide to do so. It is unacceptable to allow senior salary increases to get so out of step with what is available to the staff of universities. I hope that that message is heard loud and clear. If the member wishes to introduce legislation to nationalise every Scottish university, let him do so; otherwise I ask that he join me and be clear and unequivocal in his view.
I have a number of indications that members want to ask supplementary questions. I say to members who wish to ask a supplementary question that Ken Macintosh’s question was on the pay of university principals, and I am not prepared to go wider than that. If your question is not about that and you want to withdraw it, I am sure that you will press your button.
There has been understandable interest in and concern about the recent announcement of pay increases, and that is inevitable as we go forward. Although staff and students are not represented on remuneration committees—Ken Macintosh alluded to that—those committees’ decisions are scrutinised and decided on by the governing bodies under the new code. What are the cabinet secretary’s expectations of that process in respect of the rate of increase of principals’ pay in future?
That is a reasonable question, and the reasonable answer is that I have made it absolutely clear that those who are in charge of setting the terms and conditions—those on university courts or elsewhere—need to make it clear that they do not believe that pay, and particularly pay increases, for principals and other senior staff should run massively out of step with what is available to other members of staff. At a time when increases are being restricted to very low levels—if there is any increase at all—that is the right thing to happen for those at every level in universities. There should not be a rule for one and no rule for another.
I acknowledge the point that was made about the remuneration committees, but does the cabinet secretary expect the principal of the University of the Highlands and Islands to be paid on a par with other university principals in Scotland, when the principal of each UHI further education college has significant responsibilities?
That is a decision for the autonomous institution. I stress that again. I remember that, in the debates on the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill, there was an attempt to criticise me virtually every time I stood up on the ground that I was trying to interfere with universities and colleges. There are many decisions that those autonomous institutions are entirely free to take.
We can see from the published table where the salary of the principal of the University of the Highlands and Islands is. That is a matter for that university. The issue is not comparative rates; it is the freedom of the universities and colleges, and what they do year on year. As the table shows, some are showing commendable restraint—for some, there is no increase or a modest increase—but some appear to be substantially out of kilter with the current norm. That is the issue to which we should address ourselves. I have no hesitation in saying that that is unacceptable.
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