Name POWNEY JANET

TitleEqualities and inequalities in academic staffing practices in higher education

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of equal opportunities policies and legislation, some HE departments are barely complying with requirements and have made little progress in the last ten years (e.g. since Powney and Weiner 1992 or Farish et al 1995). Equality of opportunity issues may remain unresolved (such as continuing alleged racial and sexual discrimination); others are ignored or not perceived as problems (such as recruitment and promotion practices for part-time, hourly paid and older staff). Transparent procedures for recruitment, staff development opportunities and promotion operate in some institutions but less equitable practices exist in departments recruiting staff from a narrow and elite range of career routes and backgrounds.

This paper draws on issues emerging from a HEFCE funded study Appointment, Retention and Promotion of Academic Staff in Higher Education Institutions. (hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rdreport/summary23.htm).

Document originConference paper presented at British Educational Research Association annual conference Heriot -Watt University 11-13 September 2003

Key terms:

Higher education academic staff

Equality of opportunity: age, disability, ethnicity, gender

Recruitment, retention, promotion in HE

Part-time contract staff

HE human resource management

Equalities and Inequalities in Academic Staffing Practices in Higher Education

Janet Powney

Hon Senior Research Fellow University of Glasgow

Introduction

How do HEIs reconcile having to operate under contradictory constraints? Is it feasible to expect they can develop and maintain a high research profile as well as provide a wide range of students with good teaching and ensure a fair career deal for all academic staff? These questions are exercising academics faced with the White Paper that offers HEIs a choice between teaching and government funded research.

To what extent do the personal attributes of staff such as age, disability, gender, and ethnicity continue to influence career opportunities in higher education? The Special Needs and Disability Act (2001) and the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) are the latest UK legislative amendments intended to ensure that all HE staff (inter alia) have a fair deal. The European Framework Directive (2000/78/EC) requires member states should also make it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religion, age or sexual orientation in areas of employment and training. Member states have until December 2006 to implement provision for these anti-discriminatory measures. Non-compliance could have serious consequences for HEIs. Generously meeting the spirit as well as the letter of the law could enable HEIs to benefit from the diversity in their staffing.

Mainstreaming diversity

What is at issue is not that HEIs are necessarily contravening laws and Codes of Practice issued by the Equal Opportunities Council (EOC), the Council for Racial Equality (CRE) and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) but that they can be apparently unaware of how discriminatory can practices be within apparently fair policies and procedures. To take sex discrimination as an example, EOC (2003) provides the history of gender ‘mainstreaming’ in response to ‘gender blindness’ in organisations[1]. Two successive UN World Conferences on Women (1985,1995) determined that all UN agencies had to account for the differences that gender makes to the lives of women and men. Specifically, the position of women must be made visible, as it would no longer be acceptable to take men's lives and experiences as representative of all. Governments and organisations should mainstream a gender perspective in all policies and programmes (See Note 1). This means that before making a decision, an analysis should be made of the effects of any actions on women and men respectively.

The move toward gender equity can be extended to all disadvantaged groups so that the norm for senior staff in UK higher education is not white, able-bodied, heterosexual males but that individuals are treated on their merits rather than disadvantaged because of their visible or irrelevant difference from the norm. In other words, diversity should be mainstreamed. This is consistent with Fredman (2002) who argues for an integrated approach to equality that

Makes it possible to facilitate respect for multiple identities and address cumulative discrimination (p.v)

We are not just white or black, men or women, disabled or not, old or young, homosexual or heterosexual. Each of us is a combination of characteristics. In some cases this can result in multiple or cumulative discrimination. Moreover at least one characteristic – age– changes over time and we move into new categories on the identification boxes of questionnaires.

Inequalities in higher education

So how is higher education shaping up to equality of opportunities? Six years ago we documented instances of racial and sexual discrimination in further and higher education (Farish et al 1995). Four years ago an AUT report said that the sector is ‘rife with discrimination’ (AUT1999:1). As recent issues of the Times Higher Education Supplement indicate, discrimination is still definitely alive in higher education. At the time of writing, Imperial College London is being investigated by the Equal Opportunities Commission for alleged widespread discrimination against female staff. Complaints include unfair dismissal and bullying. A third of female academic staff reported discrimination at work in a consultant’s report about the University.[2] There is plenty of evidence that women are paid less in all grades in higher education – including at professorial level. (AUT 1999 p8)

In May 2003, a case was upheld against Brighton University for discriminating against a disabled lecturer by making it impossible for her to work. The University had not made the necessary reasonable adjustments for the senior lecturer to return to work after suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and persistent migraines. [3]

Evidence from various audits clearly indicates there is a culture of discrimination in higher education. The benefits of flexibility in terms of employment may be offset by (unintended) exploitation of certain groups who are disadvantaged (Mirza, 1995; Potts and Price, 1995; Carter, Fenton and Modood 1999). Individuals fall into more than one group and can be multi-disadvantaged (or multi-advantaged) in the segregation and discrimination that is known to occur in HE settings.

For example:

-There are professorial pay differentials between male and female and between white and non-white professors (EOC 2003; AUT 1998/99; HESA 2002)

-Staff from minority ethnic backgrounds are over-represented on fixed term contracts (Bryson 1997; Carter et al 1999). The latter indicated this is in the order of 63% compared to 39% of white staff. They are also likely to be on research-only contracts - 54% compared with 26% of white staff (HESA/AUT 1998/1999)

-HEIs have a poor record on appointing and promoting women (IRHEPC 1998) Half as many women as men were in senior posts and men on average required less service to get promoted (Bryson and Barnes 2000a)

-Procedures for promotion of hourly paid teaching staff are virtually absent (Husbands and Davis 2000)

Research and management are more likely than teaching to be rewarded in higher education (Bryson and Barnes 2000a)

-Fixed term contracts and/or hourly paid staff have not helped women enter and progress up the academic hierarchy and to obtain full time posts (Bryson and Barnes 2000b; Powney et al 2002; Bryson 2004 forthcoming)

Our recent study[4] puts a gloss on these stark facts as we surveyed Human Resource Managers in all HEIs in England, interviewed major organisational stakeholders (including the various equality commissions), conducted case studies of six English HEIs, interviewing staff in two departments in each.

Inequalities related to age and experience

It is not just that older and more successful are better paid but that they can bypass the normal procedures that more junior staff are subject to. Thus for the top research jobs, individuals are headhunted, they negotiate their own salaries and conditions – such as minimal teaching and time out for research and writing. At the bottom of the ladder are the hourly paid and staff on fixed term rolling contracts. The former may bypass ‘normal’ recruitment procedures and are vulnerable to inequitable conditions.

‘This department is an archetypal example of what you do if you go for RAE, you recruit me instead of recruiting a young blood and it’s not healthy’ (C2.4) [in order to improve our grade] ‘luminaries have been appointed…who attend two days a year…bypassed appointment procedures….head or department never even consulted about who to be appointed,’ (C2.3)

In an elite institution aimed at providing top quality research (Case E1), Ph D students run most of the seminars and give many of the lectures, thus taking time away from their own studies and providing the HEI with an inexpensive teaching force. The full time staff are released for research. Junior staff being exploited

As ever there are alternative stories, in the following instance where older but still relatively junior staff have their ideas and experience ignored:

.‘I really hesitate to call it a career at all…. Well if you have a good idea when you are in your 20s they give you the job, if you are in your 30s they give somebody else the job, if you are in your 40s+ I think they tend to sack you for it’.

Case F part-time research associate

Part-time, hourly paid and fixed term contracts

Even where there are equality of opportunity policies in place, these are not always inclusive of part-time/ fixed term contract and hourly paid staff nor are they applicable to all areas of an institution’s activity. For example 60% of HEI Human Resource managers reported their HEI had an equal pay policy for permanent staff but this fell to 50% for hourly paid staff (Powney et al 2002).

Not all university departments employ part time staff – of our 12 departments, one (bioscience department) only employed one part-timer. However other departments depend on part-time staff especially for teaching. One of our cases was a modern centre (Case D2) with 26 full time staff but 44 on part time contracts and approximately another 30 as casual employees.

How to provide part-time and hourly paid staff with a fair deal is a pertinent issue for most (but not all) institutions that have ventured into the race for funding acquired by success in the RAE exercise. Furthermore part-time and hourly paid staff are essential in keeping costs down and coping with expanding numbers of students. The Bett Report suggested that part-time staff comprised a third of the total (possibly an underestimate) and that 38% of academic staff in post 1992 HEIs were paid by the hour (IRHEPC 1999: paras 212-3). Women and staff from minority ethnic groups are more likely to be hourly paid or on fixed term contracts. Carter and colleagues (1999:19) reported that 34% of white academic staff were on fixed term contracts compared with 49% of non-white staff.

Staff are complicit in fulfilling these posts. In some disciplines such as law, art and design, specialists have always worked in this way. For others it is gaining a foothold in higher education and in the short term everyone wins: students get taught, staff get known and gain relevant experience and institutions have a flexible labour force that can be employed or not according to the demands of courses.

‘Hourly paid staff are employed by heads of departments who have their own budgets and under tremendous pressure to deliver ever rising teaching loads with money that is incredibly tight. Now if they are free to employ hourly paid staff at their own Mickey mouse rates, who are blame them for trying to do it when they are under terrific pressure. They are trying to release their full-time academics to get some research done. Of course they will pay hourly paid lecturers to take the teaching away from them, particularly if they know the hourly paid teachers are very good at their work. A lot of them are more highly qualified than standard academics. So I can see why they do it and unless you change that system or put incredible pressures on people to do otherwise they will carry on. I think the whole system is set up in a way that is prejudicial to certain people’s opportunities.’

Informant Case F1

In the longer term there could be questions raised about the support and even exploitation of staff who are trying to build an academic career with little help or responsibility from the HEI. Some of our informants who were part-time or hourly paid staff had not gained full time employment despite being in higher education for some time. One member of staff interviewed had been on a temporary contract, with regular assurances that his post would soon be made permanent, for eleven years (Case E2).

Not all part-time staff fall into the category of wanting full-time permanent employment. Changes in all sectors of education over the last twenty to thirty years have resulted in mergers, re-organisations and accompanying voluntary redundancies of staff who then seek consultancy and part-time work to sustain their interests and incomes. For example in subject areas where it is increasingly difficult and expensive to recruit specialist staff, (e.g.Teacher education), students benefit from working with very experienced staff employed on a part-time or occasional basis (e.g. to supervise student placements).

When I retired from full time teaching I did not want to come to a full stop so becoming an associate tutor was a wonderful opportunity.

Case F1 Placement supervisor Education department

Employment of specialists is seen as desirable in the creative arts where individuals maintain their own creative practices to the mutual benefit of themselves and their students.

Rights and benefits for non-permanent academic staff

Where the use of fixed term rolling contracts for staff and employment of hourly paid staff become inequitable is where individuals have no rights or benefits within the HEI. Here I am referring to access to mentoring, CPD, appraisal and performance management schemes, sabbaticals, and sometimes even fair recruitment procedures and access to promotion. Their situation is partially hidden by the lack of staff monitoring. The higher education funding bodies who have a statutory duty to collect staff data from institutions offering prescribed HEI courses and HEIs, contract The Higher Educational Statistical Agency (HESA) as an agent for this purpose. In revising the methods of collecting these data, HESA will from 2004/05 require monitoring data on (inter alia) age, gender, ethnicity and disability for all teaching and/or research staff who have a contract of employment and/or for whom the institution pays Class 1 National Insurance contributions. There will no longer be a minimum .25 FTE ‘cut off’ point below which individuals are excluded. As there was no necessity to provide data on these part-time and hourly paid staff, institutions did not collect information and some could only provide information through the pay office which was not necessarily in communication with the heads of department.

In our case studies there was probably most concern from, and about those at the bottom of the career ladder. Our survey of HR managers (Powney et al 2002 Appendix 4 Table 1) indicated that whereas all responding institutions had induction programmes for permanent staff, fewer than half offered induction for hourly paid staff although these people were invariable in direct contact with students.

Even departmental records have not always included casual staff. In at least one HEI (Case F) only the finance department (and not even the head of department) knew who was employed in a department. In another HEI, individual lecturers could make their own personal arrangements for their work to be covered by an hourly paid member of staff.

Two issues emerge here: one is ensuring the quality of services provided to students and the other is building the capacity of the HEI staff and not limiting their careers.

And here is the nub – to what extent do or should HEIs take some responsibility for enhancing the knowledge, experience and understanding of their staff? In our case studies we often heard the comment to the effect that career development is a matter for the individual, an approach that would be regarded as foolishly antiquated in the private sector where staff development is recognised as essential for the health of the enterprise and to ensure that mission statements are realised (See note 2).

Work /Life balance

A major factor in the development of teachers’ careers is becoming a parent (DfES forthcoming). Parenting responsibilities affect the main carer most whether this is the mother or father as full time teaching is incompatible with looking after children until they can be left unattended. Parents have to cope with the daily schedules of nursery and schooling with little ‘wrap around’ care for children after school and in the school holidays/ inservice days. And there are the bouts of major and minor illnesses to deal with as well.