Universities better articulating the “scale and complexity” of a vice-chancellor’s role could help to check the “witch-hunts” leaders face over their pay from politicians and the media, according to the author of a new report.
Negative coverage of vice-chancellors’ salaries had the potential to put pressure on university governing bodies and remuneration committees to reduce leaders’ salaries, said Lucy Haire, director of partnerships at the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) and author of its report Because you’re worth it: are vice-chancellors worth the pay they get?
“I think that’s dangerous, because we’ve got a global market now in executive leadership in higher education. And we’ve got a series of challenges in UK higher education that need addressing; we need the very best to do that,” she told Times Higher Education.
In the face of a debate in which vice-chancellors’ pay is “often scapegoated by politicians and the media”, the report argues that it should be acknowledged that “universities are high-revenue organisations, receiving up to £2.2 billion annually, and have enormous local, national and international influence, so high-quality leadership is essential”; that leaders’ pay “is not a Wild West, but determined carefully by remuneration committees”; and that the three best-rewarded UK leaders earn “more than the UK prime minister and managers in the NHS, but less than institutional leaders of private sector companies with similar revenue”.
