Following a nationwide investigation by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, it has been revealed that many UK university staff receive six-figure annual salaries. In staff pay league tables, Oxford is near the top. The university maintains this is necessary to maintain its high academic standards.
As part of a broad-based campaign to promote taxpayers’ right to transparently evaluate how their money is being spent, the Tax Payers’ Alliance has made a series of Freedom of Information requests to UK universities. The result of this investigation has been an unexpectedly high proportion of academic staff and offi cials receiving six-figure salaries.
Out of the 7554 employees earning at least £100,000pa, 622 work for Oxford University, approximately double the number of six figure salary staff at Cambridge. One Oxford payee, earning £630,000pa, took second place on the individual staff members’ high pay league table.
High pay is not restricted to Oxbridge, with London Metropolitan University’s former Vice Chancellor earning over £600,000pa.
A University spokesperson told Cherwell that high pay packages are necessary to remain the world’s second-best academic institution. As a consequence of its position as “a global leader for research and teaching”, the “exceptional minds” the University is looking to attract are “also sought-after by international competitors”. Protecting Oxford University’s acquired status of excellence and potentially rising up the league tables ultimately requires the organisation to “reward their talent appropriately”, the spokesperson said.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance warns the high tuition fees currently paid by students make it imperative that tax money is spent according to academic merit. Chief executive of the Alliance, Jonathan Isaby, told Cherwell, “It is vitally important that money is not wasted [particularly since] the tax burden is very high …for those on low incomes (including students).”
The Alliance values transparency in university affairs and insists on the importance of a system in which “hard-working taxpayers can judge whether they are getting value for money from the public sector’s senior employees”.
