Produced by Queen’s UCUIssue No 1January 2007
What is Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander
On Monday 6 November the V-C announced that QUB had been invited to join the Russell Group. The next day the Remunerations Committee met to review the pay of the Senior Managers (V-C, Pro-V-Vs, Deans, Registrar, and Support Directors). This annual review took into account salaries within and without the sector, including the Russell Group. The Committee also decided to bring forward the implementation of these pay rises from 1 October to 1 August 2006.
The V-C was reviewed by the Pro-Chancellors and given a reward reflecting pay increases for other V-Cs and “his outstanding performance and contribution.”
The pay of Senior Managers is not determined by the pay rises for other staff, but changes in salary are based upon a comprehensive review of performance against agreed objectives evaluated by the V-C and/or the Registrar. Individual salaries are not revealed, even to the governing body. Excluding the pay awards to Pro-V-Cs and Deans under the Professorial Salary Review, the average increase awarded to the Senior Management Group was 6.3%. This compares to the increase in pay for academic and related staff (excluding professors and joint appointments) of some 5 – 5.5%.
The many achievements of this university (including admission to the Russell Group) have been brought about mainly by the ordinary academic and related staff . Yet there is no sign that QUB management intends to reward them so promptly and so generously. Very soon University of Ulster staff will receive a bigger percentage rise than QUB staff, and they already enjoy pay scales those main part often exceeds that paid in QUB. We will be pointing out to QUB management that, if they want to retain staff and maintain morale, they had better examine the less frugal pay scales used in the various Russell Group institutions. After all,the V-C did say on the radio that Queen’s staff deserve recognition for all their hard work over the years.
The Professorial Salary Review
Non-clinical professors do not have any automatic incremental progression, but their place on the various professorial pay points and the structure of these points is reviewed once every three years. In between reviews their pay is adjusted to reflect pay changes elsewhere and, in practice, they have received the same percentage pay rise as ordinary academic staff. However they did not benefit from the Framework Agreement structural changes from 1 August 2005, and last year some professors were paid less than some Senior Lecturers. The old pay structure and the process of the review were describe in the Newsletter last February. The structure from 1 August 2006 is:
Range 1 / Range 2 / Range 3 / Range 450,985 / 52,530 / 54,075 / 57,680 / 60,976 / 64,684 / 68,495 / 72,306 / 76,220 / 78,280 / 81,679 / 85,078 / 88,580 / 90,640 / 93,730 / 96,820
The outcomes of the latest triennial review were announced this autumn, and the average increase in professorial pay was 12.68%, with the mean professorial salary becoming about £64K. As only 42% of professors are paid more than this, the median salary must be well below £64K. Five professors who were previously outside it joined the scheme and brought the total involved to 182. 51 professors did not move by any salary point and 69 had one increment. (Remember, this is over a three year period.) 24 professors got more than one increment and 33 jumped to a new range.
Although there are descriptions of the four pay ranges, there is no indication of how the pay point within the range is chosen. Pay within a range can differ by £18K. Professors need to know the basis of their initial positioning and what they need to do to advance within a range. The present lack of transparency leaves QUB vulnerable to equal pay cases. When payments for major administrative offices in Schools were abolished AUT were told that these duties would be rewarded through discretionary pay and the Professorial Pay Scheme. Yet we see no explicit or rapid recognition of such duties in the scheme.
Top Pay in Queen’s
It is always interesting to see how top people in the organisation are paid, and, by law, the QUB accounts have had to summarise staff with remuneration above £50K, excluding employer’s pension contributions but including NHS merit payments. Four years ago the limit shifted to £70K.
93/4 / 95/6 / 97/8 / 99/00 / 01/02 / 02/03 / 03/04 / 04/05 / 05/06£70,001 - £80,000 / 14 / 11 / 8 / 16 / 25 / 22 / 37 / 38 / 40
£80,001 - £90,000 / 6 / 4 / 7 / 9 / 14 / 12 / 18 / 21 / 20
£90,001 - £100,000 / 5 / 6 / 5 / 3 / 10 / 7 / 6 / 6 / 14
£100,001 - £110,000 / 1 / 5 / 3 / 6 / 4 / 8 / 14 / 13 / 5
£110,001 - £120,000 / - / - / 3 / - / 4 / 6 / 3 / 2 / 4
£120,001 - £130,000 / - / - / 2 / 2 / 5 / 9 / 9 / 9 / 7
£130,001 - £140,000 / - / - / - / 1 / 2 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 7
£140,001 - £150,000 / - / - / - / 1 / - / - / 1 / 2 / 2
£150,001 - £160,000 / - / - / - / - / 1 / - / - / 1 / 4
£160,001 - £170,000 / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / 5
£170,001 - £180,000 / - / - / - / - / - / 1 / - / - / 2
£180,001 - £190,000 / - / - / - / - / - / - / 1 / - / 2
£190,001 - £200,000 / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / -
£200,001 - £210,000 / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / 2
£210,001 - £220,000 / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / -
£230,000 - £240,000 / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / - / 1
As the mean professorial salary has just reached £64K, those now in the table are mainly professors holding a major office, senior administrators (such as Directors) and clinical academics. The inclusion of clinical academics greatly distorts the picture as they inhabit a totally different pay world from the rest of us. The new NHS Consultants Contract gave them very large pay increases which have been backdated for a couple of years. Moreover they can earn overtime by offering more clinical sessions. For joint appointments QUB pays half of their basic salary, but not any of theNHS merit payments. To give you an idea of clinical salaries, Queen’s has just advertised for a Senior Academic GP and for a Senior Lecturer/Consultant both at a salary of £70,822 -£95,831. This is nearly double the salary of a non-clinical Senior Lecturer.
The Vice-Chancellor’s emoluments (excluding the Lodge, etc.) were £187K for 2005/6, up £10K on the previous year.
The total gross salaries and wages in QUB increased 7.7% to £108.877M. But this increase in the total pay bill should not be confused with an average pay rise for individuals. As shown by the table, there has been a growth in Academic and Administration staff, but a drop in the lower paid staff (probably due to privatisation).
Average staff by category / 1994/5 / 1999/00 / 2000/1 / 2001/2 / 2002/3 / 2003/4 / 2004/5 / 2005/6Academic / 768 / 837 / 863 / 912 / 954 / 968 / 991 / 1,020
Administration / 266 / 281 / 289 / 304 / 353 / 364 / 389 / 402
Technical / 446 / 516 / 490 / 426 / 449 / 456 / 459 / 440
Research / 306 / 389 / 423 / 447 / 501 / 488 / 549 / 527
Other / 1104 / 1,367 / 1,300 / 1,339 / 1,167 / 1,195 / 1,189 / 1,131
Total / 2890 / 3,390 / 3,365 / 3,428 / 3,424 / 3,471 / 3,577 / 3,520
QUB Finances
The audited accounts for the year ending 31 July 2006have been approved by Senate. The rules on what has to be included (especially pension fund deficits) have been changed and so last year’s accounts have been restated on the same basis for comparison. On a income of about £226M we had a surplus of £11.522M (5.1% of income). This is a similar percentage to that inprevious years. QUB has an aim of an average surplus of 3% in order to fund investment in buildings, infrastructure and major capital projects. Few universities, including distinguished ones, have such surpluses.
Total income increased by £14.0M or 6.6%. Government grants increased to £97.7M and various academic fees totalled £396.0M. Of this £6.334M was from full-time students charged overseas fees, an increase of just 4.7%. Income from research grants and contracts increased to £46.0M. Within this figure income from Research Councils and charities was £13.3M, an increase of 15.7%. The contribution to indirect costs decreased by £0.2M to £4.4M and at 10.0% remains below that achieved by our comparators and has dropped from the 10.3% of last year.
In 2004/05 £2.8M of round 1 of the Rewarding and Developing Staff Initiative was consolidated into the recurrent grant and £801K of round 2 was paid to QUB. In 2004/05 a further £1.8M was paid. This initiative was supposed to solve the pay problems in universities but only part has been used to fund the Framework Agreement.
Total expenditure increased by £13.1M. 60.8% (£130.3M) of expenditure was on staff costs, which is down from 60.9%, 62.6% and 63.4% in the preceding years. The management complain that this is still higher than the sector average of around 59%, but you cannot get Russell Group performance by paying the sector average.
The deficit on the QUB Retirement Benefits Plan (for non USS staff) of £39.4M has been reflected as a liability in the consolidated balance sheet with a corresponding adjustment to the general reserves.At the end of the year General Reserves (excluding the Pension Reserve) stood at £78.1M (an increase of 16.3%) and Deferred Capital Grants at £106.7M (21.9%).The total net assets (including the pension liability) of the University rose by £36.9M.
The Honorary Treasurer said: “These achievements are due to the commitment and hard work of all staff, both academic and academic support, and their contribution is highly valued.”
For the current year a surplus of £8.076M is now being forecast. This is up considerably from the surplus of £3.409m which was estimated in June. That estimate was made before the conclusion of the pay dispute and now the management have reduced by £1.4M their provision for the pay award. In other words, while the employers nationally loudly pleaded poverty, QUB management had set aside £1.4M for pay which they will now spend on other things. That is why Queen’s UCU was so disappointed at the national pay settlement.
National UCUElections
Nominations have closed for the UCU national elections, and the good news is that there are a large number of candidates. But the bad news for the electorate is that in order to perform fully their democratic duty they will need to read about 80 pages of election statements.
The elections will be by a postal ballot in February. You will have a single transferable ballot to use in each of a large number of constituencies. The General Secretary candidates are: Ms Sally Hunt (UCU joint General Secretary), Mr Peter Jones (Deeside College of FE), and Mr Roger Kline (UCU national head of equality and employment rights). You may already have started receiving emails from them.
There are three candidates for President. There also three for “President-elect or vice president from the higher education sector”; the winner here will be President-elect if the person elected President is from the FE sector, otherwise they will be vice president. There are three candidates for Treasurer, and you need to elect four out of eleven candidates for Trustee. For the UK elected members of the National Executive Committee from HE you will have 44 candidates to consider in order to elect 14. There are also a number of “Equality seats” where the candidates come from special groups although the electorate is the whole membership, so you will be asked to elect two out of six candidates as representatives of black members. You will also be asked to elect three out of eleven candidates as representatives of women member in HE. You have been spared one election: Dr Terry McKnight of UU has been returned unopposed as the representative of HE in Northern Ireland.
Although electors face a formidable task we urge you not to shirk it. It is essential that the new union gets off to a good start by being led by competent people who will unite it. If you do not vote then you have no moral right to complain about your new leaders. The staggering of the terms of office will mean that in future years you voting task will be less onerous.
Hospitality Services
As reported in the July Newsletter there is a major restructuring of Hospitality Services (mainly catering and student accommodation). This is virtually completed for the manual staff,some of whom transferred to the new operators with pay and conditions protected under TUPE. However, the academic related staff have not transferred because they are not tied to particular units. There is to be a smaller management structure with fewer posts and different job descriptions. These are being trawled internally. However not all the existing staff can be appointed within Hospitality Services, and we will be supporting members who need redeployment, retraining or a severance/early retirement package.
Paul Hudson
Fixed-term and Hourly-paid Staff
Our meeting for members employed on fixed-term contracts has had to be rescheduled to 1 p.m. on Tuesday 30 January in G001 David Bates Building. These are mainly research staff and, as they are a very vulnerable group, we wish to hear of any problems that they are encountering. The same applies to those who are paid by the hour and work (mainly as teaching assistants) on a casual basis. We are holding a special meeting for them on Monday 29 January in G001 David Bates Building. Because of the problems we have had in identifying and recruiting such people, this meeting will be open to non-members in this category. Please encourage relevant people to come to these meetings.
Queen’s UCU Committee Elections
Although the local Officers and General Members are elected at our AGM in June, the constituency representatives are elected at this time of year by single transferable vote. The constituencies are:
1The Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences,
2The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences,
3The Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences,
4Administrative Staff,
5Library Staff,
6Research Staff,
7Computer Staff
Each nomination for each constituency shall be made from the membership of that constituency by two members of that constituency and must be accompanied by the written consent of the nominee. It should be sent to Queen’s UCU Office, Lanyon Southby 5 p.m. on Wednesday 31 January 2007. If you have any doubts as to which constituency you are in you should consult that office on ext 3090. If necessary, an election will then be held. However, there are several vacancies on the Committee for co-opted members and so we could probably fit in anyone interested in joining the Committee. This is an opportunity for those critical of the local negotiators to show us in detail how to do better.
George Dunn, Information Services