After it emerged recently that many university heads were earning \u00a3300,000 a year, with some topping \u00a3400,000, Mr Johnson urged institutions to show restraint.<\/p>\n
He has asked for universities to justify pay rates above \u00a3150,000 to new higher education regulator, the Office for Students.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not want to read about VC [vice chancellor] pay in the newspapers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese headlines raise fears that students\u2019 fees are not being used efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Universities have argued that higher salaries are justified by their heads as they have enormous responsibility in managing large institutions and big budgets.<\/p>\n
Mr Johnson called for universities to show \u201cgreater restraint\u201d in salaries for vice-chancellor and senior level positions and for \u201ctransparency and openness\u201d in the way pay is set out.<\/p>\n
“We [need to] put an end to the spate of damaging headlines we’ve seen over recent weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under new plans, which will be consulted on, the Office for Students could use its powers to impose fines if institutions do not provide viable reasons for high pay.<\/p>\n
The new regulator, headed by Nicola Dandridge, former chief executive of Universities UK, will also issue new guidance on the role and independence of pay committees.<\/p>\n
In a move that Mr Johnson called \u201cout of the spirit of public service\u201d, Ms Dandridge herself volunteered for a pay cut going from \u00a3200,000 a year to \u00a3165,000.<\/p>\n
Professor Janet Beer, president of Universities UK, said the public was right to question high salaries.<\/p>\n
“It is right to expect that the process for determining pay for senior staff is rigorous and the decision-making process is transparent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
“It is also reasonable to expect that decisions are explained and justified.”<\/p>\n
The overall cost of salary and benefits for vice-chancellors rose by 2.5% to an average remuneration of \u00a3257,904 in 2015-16 compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n
Some of the more high-profile cases of pay levels include Alice Gast, Imperial College London vice-chancellor, who is paid \u00a3430,000, Sir David Eastwood of University of Birmingham, on \u00a3426,000, and University of Exeter vice-chancellor Sir Steve Smith, who is also paid \u00a3426,000 a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New measures set out by Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science,\u00a0will seek to curb escalating rates of pay for university vice-chancellors. After it emerged recently that many university heads were earning \u00a3300,000 a year, with some topping \u00a3400,000, Mr Johnson urged institutions to show restraint. He has asked for universities to justify […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":23979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,38,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-national-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}