Super salaries for college heads means pennies left for staff

1 July 2009

Unite, the UK's biggest union has today (Wednesday) accused governors and college heads of hypocrisy on pay after figures revealed that 80 colleges across England had boosted their principals' salaries by more than 50% in eight years.

Unite and other further education unions compiled data on pay in the sector, showing that principals' pay increased on average by 41.6%. This resulted in some salaries, such as the Principal of Newcastle College, being as high as £184,000 a year.

By contrast the Association of Colleges (AoC) this week offered FE staff a 1.5% increase; worth just 8p an hour for the lowest paid. While Unite are seeing an explosion in principals' pay, some colleges are only paying some of their support staff the statutory minimum wage.

Mike Robinson, Unite national officer for the further education sector said: "Boards of Governors of our major FE Colleges should be ashamed and brought to account. Ashamed by the low level of pay in many FE colleges and brought to account for the hypocritical and financially inept way they have thrown money at Principals' pay in the sector"

"Bankers and MPs will now be thinking of taking jobs as Principals in Further Education Colleges as the pay increases are better."

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