Universities: Vice-Chancellors’ Pay

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord makes a number of good points. It is not just the level of the vice-chancellor’s remuneration that is important—it is that of senior staff as well. It is important that the vice-chancellor’s salary does not vastly exceed that of other staff. The noble Lord alluded to that. I go back to the responsibilities involved. For example, the University of Manchester’s annual income for 2015-16 was £987 million. It runs more than 1,000 degree programmes. There are nearly 40,000 students and 12,000 staff. There are considerable responsibilities involved. I do not want to defend vice-chancellors, but our aim is to put enough pressure on these institutions to ensure that their house is in order—just as with a private company.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I do not wish to disparage our great universities; they are a source of great pride to the nation. What is the Government’s view on the pension packages of some vice-chancellors? Some of them have very large lump sums and very generous pension payments, as well as additional salary supplements—all presumably paid for out of public funds. Are the Government concerned about this in any way?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

There was a Question in the House the other day about pension schemes, particularly looking at concerns about the deficit. I hope that I addressed those concerns. We have to look at the package as a whole. We are focussing on vice-chancellors’ pay, but the package includes a pension scheme. I am not going to comment as to whether it is generous or not, but it is a final salary scheme. It is important for universities to take account of the whole package for vice-chancellors, including not just the pension but perhaps also the housing that they are in. This has been in the press as well.