Australia and the UK experience regular annual outrage over vice-chancellors' pay. The decline of public sector funding has contributed to a process of privatisation of the income stream, and corporatisation of the governance mechanisms and Im a beneficiary of that process, as deputy dean.. In 1957, the Murray Report found that Australian universities were grossly under-resourced and recommended the establishment of a grants commission to advise on funding requirements (Committee on Australian Universities, Citation1957). By 2018 they were earning 16 times as much. Professor Tom Smith, who heads the department of applied finance at Macquarie University, said vice-chancellors salaries had been inappropriately benchmarked against government department and corporate chief executives since the 1980s. Annual Report 2020 - ANU In 19931994, VCs salaries averaged 93,498 [AUD$168,300], whilst the most junior lecturer grades had a mean salary of 20,412 [AUD $37,038], a ratio of 4.6, and senior lecturers 29,543 [AUD $53,607], a ratio 3.2. Third, the institutionalised and sometimes coercive structural power of agency relationships can be distinguished from the personal expert and referent power of stewardship (Davis et al., Citation1997, pp. Australian Public Universities Vice-Chancellor Salaries and Workforce Casualisation: Ethical Tension? Of the two ways that agency theory suggests can mitigate this problem, we have demonstrated that in both the UK and Australia, remuneration has not been effective in aligning the interests of principals (in terms of well-functioning universities) and agents. Bachan and Reilly found little evidence that university performance accounted for UK VCs remuneration levels, concluding that: It may be the casethat VC pay is more merited than some of the harsher public criticism suggests. This system persisted until the late 1990s, when it was replaced by decentralised local enterprise bargaining, consistent with more managerialist employment practices (Anderson et al., Citation2002), under which academic salaries were determined by each university. Similar, but less extreme, trends are evident in the UK. >> Rent-seeking behaviour is where actors extract a greater share of remuneration than is economically justified in terms of work undertaken or risks endured; it is a consequence of having unchecked power (Krueger, Citation1974). This would be in line with agency thinking concerning surveillance and control where remuneration has failed to achieve the desired goals. Baimbridge and Simpson (Citation1996) correctly hypothesised that the ending of local authority control over the old polytechnics and colleges as they entered the university sector (becoming the post-1992s) would lead to a rapid escalation in VC remuneration. As in Australia, these increases are not indicative of general remuneration increases in the sector. The government pushes freedom of speech and foreign interference agendas, but shows little interest in the role of universities in producing the next generation of doctors, nurses, lawyers, diplomats, architects, engineers, teachers and social workers. "Australia is not the colonies any more. In interpreting the table, we need to be wary of changing vice-chancellor employment over the three years as this distorts remuneration. The Dawkins reforms signalled a Thatcher-like commodification of the tertiary education system (Pusey, Citation1991, p. 148). When Schmidt was 13, they landed in Anchorage, Alaska, where his father worked on an environmental impact study of a proposed dam (it never got built). First, principals may institute costly governance systems that delimit, control and monitor agents actions. /Font 42 0 R Salaries have skyrocketed since. And when salaries are not justifiable by performance, they can be said to constitute rent an economic concept that means extracting an unjustified level of resource from an organisation as a result of ownership or control. This would require considerable political will, but there is little evidence of an appetite for that. VCs were to serve as chief executive officers of universities that were, in turn, expected to be more business-like and entrepreneurial (Harman & Treadgold, Citation2007). 7 0 obj 9 0 obj Email Template Shortcuts | Western Sydney University - Email Template The balance of internal power shifted away from academic senates to university councils which became smaller and focused on strategic and financial matters (Rowlands, Citation2017). Benchmarking therefore casts an aura of market-based objectivity, but is essentially self-fulfilling (Essaji & Horton, Citation2009). My big problem is that this is the government of the day, he says. So, if universities hire highly paid marketing or communications staff, it drives up pay levels for those above (but not below) them. Of course, these are demanding roles, but econometric research demonstrates little, if any, relationship between vice-chancellors pay and their actual performance. The time for the UCC to talk about transparency is over it should act now, given that universities are engaged in enterprise bargaining and have seen significant staff cuts. While most, but not all, vice-chancellors took pay cuts during 2020 in solidarity with staff, there is no evidence that vice-chancellors pay reflects the performance of their university. As such, they dont have controlling owners/shareholders. Julie Hare is the Education editor. TEQSA Publisher ID: PRV12061 (Australian University) Locked Bag 1797 Penrith NSW 2751 Tel: +61 2 9852 5222. A bill put before the SA parliament last October sought to tie vice-chancellors salaries to that of the premier. During our lunch, Schmidt tells me more than half a dozen times that being a vice-chancellor is hard, really hard. It was a sophisticated city in the middle of nowhere.. From 1974 until 1986, the national Academic Salaries Tribunal determined Australian academic staff salaries centrally (Marginson, Citation1989). Campus Morning Mail is an independent newsletter written and published by Stephen Matchett, formerly a long-serving journalist at The Australian newspaper. VCs remuneration, in contrast, has always been at the discretion of each university with no external controls. /Parent 2 0 R The framework for academic salaries is now set collectively, but there is local discretion on bargaining and implementation. In August 2021, the University Chancellors Council (UCC) released a voluntary code to benchmark the salaries of university vice-chancellors and promised to benchmark senior executive salaries in public universities. List of Australian university leaders - Wikipedia After 1945, the University Grants Commission (which channelled government funding) determined salaries and pay scales in consultation with the academic union. Egan Associates Principal John Egan was recently quoted by a number of media publications on the topic of University Vice Chancellor remuneration. $100 million a year, still wouldnt do it. Gschwandtner and McManus (Citation2018) and others (e.g., Schmidt & Dworschak, Citation2006) found that high levels of VC remuneration are linked to benchmarking exercises, where those universities with below average pay increase their VC pay quicker than those with above average pay (Gschwandtner & McManus, Citation2018, p. 1). /ExtGState 48 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 595 842] Schmidt is garrulous; his Montana drawl tamed by 30 years in Australia. Governors do not want to go through the hassle of appointing a new vice-chancellor, so they make sure they give [the existing one] a little more each year. That is their vital ingredient and they have training to get it. (Bachan & Reilly, Citation2015, p. 70). Click here for the Complete List of Vice-Chancellor Pay & Salary Packages At Australian Universities. /ProcSet [/PDF /ImageC /Text] Vice-Chancellor's introduction It has been said that 2020 was an unprecedented year for the whole world - and ANU was no exception. 20 0 obj >> /Parent 2 0 R Although we draw on empirical examples from both Australia and the UK, this is not a comparative article. University of Queensland. Please try again later. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). The university, which has not yet announced Professor Beans successor, posted a $55.93 million deficit last year, putting it among the universities worst hit by Australias border closures, which have severely disrupted the nations $40 billion international student market. The couple tied the knot in 1992. However, their salaries pale into insignificance beside the $4.29 million paid to the University of Louisvilles outgoing president, James Ramsay. << UK universities began as autonomous, self-governing communities of scholars endowed financially by the state, church or wealthy individuals (Moodie & Eustace, Citation1974). Top 10 Vice-Chancellor Salary Packages AUD$ - Australian University Hard Facts and Insider Analysis from Stephen Matchett, greater transparency and accountability are necessary. vice-chancellor salaries Fourth, stewardship is marked by high commitment and trust, but agency seeks to minimise risk through control systems that cast individuals as economically self-interested actors (Davis et al., Citation1997, pp. /Count 12 I ask Schmidt why relations are so strained. The NTEU said that the average starting pay for a senior lecturer had risen 2.4 per cent to about A$117,300. Professor Schmidt, who negotiated a salary package of just two-thirds of his predecessor, Ian Young, said the university council had been concerned about what such a low salary would flag about the institution. /MediaBox [0 0 595 842] In 2018-19 vice-chancellors received nearly 350,000 (A$635,000) on average. Turning to the highest paid vice-chancellor in Australia, The University of Melbourne's Professor Duncan Maskell's salary is $1,469,999, a pay cut of $44,000 from 2020. Unlike Australia, the British government never sought to control remuneration, but has pursued market mechanisms to correct information asymmetries. Most Likely Range. Source: public Australian universities 2017 annual reports, using mid-points of published remuneration ranges unless precise figures were disclosed. /Filter /FlateDecode These procedures outline the process and steps for researchers who wish to apply for a human ethics exemption, as permitted under Section 5.1.22 of The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). 19 0 obj University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell is due to become Australias highest-paid vice-chancellor from next month. Bachan and Reilly (Citation2015) found that UK elite university VCs tended to be paid more than their less prestigious counterparts. However, in the early twentieth century, companies began raising capital by selling shares, distributing ownership rights more widely and separating shareholder ownership from control by professional managers (Berle & Means, Citation1932/Citation1968). At least 28 of Australia's 41 vice-chancellors have accepted salary reductions, a Times Higher Education analysis has found. He donated $100,000 of his share in the 10 million Swedish krona (roughly $1.5 million in todays money) Nobel Prize money to a primary school science program the federal government had just defunded. But the comparison is wrong because vice-chancellors run public institutions, students are different to employees and there is little evidence any VCs have created new strategic directions in the face of the hit to their income during COVID-19. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. Policies and Procedures Library - The University of Queensland, Australia Vice-Chancellor Salary Packages (Archive 2017) - Australian University By 2019, some 81% of UK universities still allowed their VC to attend remuneration committee meetings and nine still allowed the VC to vote (down from 66 the previous year) (Adams, Citation2019). Its where they raised their two children and planted 1.1 hectares of pinot grapes. Dr Spence told the inquiry that in 2020, Sydney University identified 247 academic staff and 45 administrators paid more $250,000 a year. << Source: iStock. Bergami Roberto The Australian National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) argued that Australian VCs were the highest paid in the world (Kniest, Citation2017). Young man, what are you doing? she asked me. /Pages 2 0 R Full article: Paying the piper: the governance of vice-chancellors Professionals were seen as unaccountable and self-serving, making the self-governing universities with significant public funding an obvious target (McNay, Citation1999).