Outcry over the pay of Vice-Chancellors is a cheap distraction from the real problems that face the sector, but has now become such a frequent headline that Chancellors need to step away from the pre-dinner drinks cabinet and engineer a publicly-defensible solution.
Is $1 million too much for the boss of a billion dollar institution? The correct answer is that right now, it doesn’t matter what you or I think, because the public and parliament keep telling us it is – and dead-batting the issue is just not helping. Let’s get the first lesson of media management 101 out of the way – the recipients of perceived largesse can’t exactly go into bat for themselves, which means the councils that set salaries need to take responsibility for the issue in the public arena and deliver explanations that the public will buy. They can choose to either cough up a solid justification, or alternatively confess to screwing it up – whichever answer, they choose, it is going to be better than the obfuscation and/or avoidance route currently being followed. The ‘lets-just-weather-the-storm’ strategy is damaging the sector.
Western Sydney earned plaudits last year when Chancellor Jennifer Westacott and incoming VC George Williams negotiated a deal pegged to the top tier of public service remuneration. This was savvy and had the rare benefit of a logical and publicly-accessible evidence base for decision making – making the package defensible. Others may have taken similar steps, but if so, have been less adept at explaining their rationale – with Councils apparently ill-equipped to communicate with, let alone persuade the Australian public.
The problem with the campaign against VC salaries is that it identifies just one part of a wider remuneration issue for the sector relating to remuneration for labour; which for better or worse has the potential to extend to long-term historic resistance to outsourcing, precarity of work, inadequate performance management and many other issues.
Setting aside the public mis-handling of the issue, here is the ongoing problem with maintaining focus on VC salaries alone. Let’s assume for a moment that VC salaries are suddenly capped at $430,000, as suggested by Senator Lambie. We have seen this routine in professional sports codes for decades, with caps imposed, and many other forms of reward emerging to supplement direct salaries. What will allowable beyond the salary cap and who scrutinises it? Does the salary cap include the free house that some VCs have on campus? Does it include Research and professional development grants that the institution could award to the VC to spend at their discretion (leadership course in Tuscany anyone?)? Now that VC pay is regulated, do they get overtime for all those evening and weekend functions? Or will we start to see corporate endorsements embroidered on the VC’s collar, so they supplement their income, like a footy coach or an F1 driver? And what about performance incentives, moving allowances, per diems … the list goes on. I’m not arguing for retaining high salaries, but let’s not pretend a legislated cap has ever been the end of a salary story.
Secondly, most of the sector realise that while the VC earns the big bucks, the execs of most unis are also earning substantial incomes, with many in excess of the $430,000 cap proposed. What about them? Is it ok for the VP Global to be earning more than the VC? And why just stop at the exec? What about the income of ongoing staff compared to the patchwork of dollars that casual staff have to rely on? What about the disparity between Level E and Level A? And Level 1 vs Level 10+ in professional ranks?
If we really want to look at cost of labour and equitable pay, how is it defensible for junior staff to be required to work at the level above them for an extended time for free before they are judged worthy of promotion by a committee of ancient gatekeepers?
Finally, if you really want to look at expenditure, why not look at the income earned by staff in areas that could be outsourced for a fraction of the price? Sure, there might be a change in outcomes delivered and alterations to service levels, but if the sector allows discussions to only focus on the price of labour of individuals rather than the value of that labour, then most staff members are then exposed to unwanted and often unfair scrutiny.
There need to be justifications for the size of the bag of gold handed over to any employee in return for their labour, but a critical step in explaining the pay rates of employees at any level is determining the value that they deliver, both directly and indirectly. If staff, including the VC, don’t have relevant and defensible measures for their performance, then it becomes really hard to explain salaries.
Performance management has been a dirty word in many backwaters of the sector for a while, but as long as VC’s are trolled over their pay level, the real question of what has been achieved in relation to that pay is a distant second. Why do we only see articles about VC pay, but very rarely about performance and whether that pay level was warranted? Is the sector’s narrative weighed down by councils too aloof to bother explaining themselves, or worse, by a failure of universities to identify exactly what constitutes success?
Regardless, it’s time to lance the boil, and address the issue effectively.
Overall, public arguments waged about HE on sentiment alone are a blight on our hopes of being understood and valued by our communities. Basic issues management should have been implemented or insourced at least a year ago by Councils and their Chancellors; developing, implementing and articulating solutions based on evidence deemed defensible in the public realm.
Higher Education in Australia has many strengths and many issues. It’s time to move past the VC pay headlines – and that is the responsibility of Chancellors and the Councils they lead. Councils need to move to defensible, evidence-based remuneration pegged to relevant comparators. It is a simple step forward that would immediately remove VC Pay discussions from the agenda, so we could all move on to issues of greater consequence to the future of the sector.
Councils are going to need to be more frequently prepared to publicly defend their decisions in this era of heightened governance scrutiny – avoiding scrutiny and sticking the VC out to field every media question simply doesn’t work anymore.
