To Gazette No. 4389 (1 February 1996)
(a) Oxford's average payments to professors (taking into account discretionary awards and departmental allowances) were not out of line with those of other universities.
(b) Oxford should not abandon the fixed basic salary for professors, with periodic rounds of distinction awards, but should continue, however, the arrangement under which, if the Vice-Chancellor was satisfied after inquiry as to the distinction of an invitee to a chair, a temporary distinction award might be made, to last until the next round of such awards at which point the professor in question would be considered for a permanent award on the same footing as all those without such awards. This scheme should be brought fully to the notice of Congregation. [Note: 1]
(c) Further thought should be given to the level of the basic professorial salary, bearing in mind inter alia that Cambridge's basic salary was some £2K more than Oxford's and also that a rough calculation suggested that an Oxford tutorial fellow paid at the joint maximum might on average be £800 per annum worse off (because of loss of college allowances) on election to an established professorship if paid at the basic rate.
2 At this point discussions were suspended until decisions had been made on promotions and the recognition of distinction, in case these involved significant extra expenditure on professorial posts. Following the decision to confer titles without change of stipends or duties, consideration of professorial salaries began again in Trinity Term 1995 and has continued in Michaelmas Term. In the 1995--6 budget exercise, £272K recurrent was set aside for professorial pay (a sum calculated by reference to ideas under discussion by the Academic Salaries Committee at the time the budget was prepared but which do not now form the basis of the proposals.
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3 In resuming its discussions the committee started by thinking further about point 1 (c) above. In addition to the particular issues of comparability mentioned in it, there is evidence that the relatively low level of basic professorial salary is a disincentive to recruitment, and the committee has undertaken some further investigation of the position in other UK universities in order to see precisely how Oxford's arrangements compare. On the latter point, the information in the annexe to this report confirms that Oxford's average expenditure on professorial salaries (i.e. including not only the basic salary but merit awards and departmental allowances) is in line with similar expenditure by other universities even though other universities may make payments to some professors which are considerably larger than any payment made by Oxford. The absence of such payments at Oxford is balanced by the absence of payments at the bottom of the professorial range, i.e. Oxford's professorial minimum is relatively high.
4 None the less, the committee is clear from what has been said to it about recent experience of recruitment to professorships that Oxford's arrangements need to be changed in order to ensure that the University is in a position to recruit the most distinguished individuals to its chairs. Problems over salary which have been experienced with invitees (particularly in the last few months) show clearly that the level of the basic Oxford professorial stipend is affecting the overall field for posts. Electoral boards are finding it more difficult to assess the full range of potential appointees since it is clear that many individuals simply would not consider accepting, on salary grounds. This is now becoming widespread in respect of potential candidates from the UK as well as from overseas: in the context of the comparative information in the annexe it will be appreciated that it is often the individuals in the higher range of professorial salaries at other institutions whom Oxford is trying to attract to its basic professorial stipend. In other words, Oxford is increasingly trying to appoint the outstanding stars from other institutions who command, under the salary arrangements of those institutions, salaries greatly in excess of the norm for those places and in excess of national averages. The committee also accepts that it is important to address the questions of comparability with the income of a tutorial fellow (in part again to encourage recruitment) and with arrangements at Cambridge. The committee is also sympathetic to the view that very many of the distinguished professorial staff already at Oxford may justifiably expect their salaries not to be out of line with those of outstanding individuals elsewhere. As the information in the annexe shows, Oxford salaries are only comparable with those in the upper quartile in other universities when distinction awards are paid, and the committee is therefore clear that an increase in the basic salary level, or in the levels and numbers of distinction awards, is needed.
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5 Noting the agreement (see 1 (b) above) that Oxford should maintain a basic professorial salary, the committee has therefore concentrated on the merits of a flat increase in the base rate as against the provision of more distinction awards and/or the creation of further levels of distinction award in addition to the existing ones in a way which would in essence create a professorial `scale', albeit one through which there would be no automatic progression.
6 As noted above, Council and General Board, on the recommendation of the Resources Committee, agreed in Trinity Term 1995 to set aside £272K per annum from 1 August 1995 for changes in professorial pay. The committee has noted that it would be possible to use this money in one of two ways.
7 The first would be to increase the basic professorial salary. Allowing for the necessary extra NI and USS payments, £272K would be sufficient to fund an increase of £1,172 in the basic professorial salary, so raising it from £36,827 to £37,999. Although it would obviously not be unhelpful to be able to advertise chairs at this slightly higher salary, the committee does not believe that such an across-the-board increase—which would leave the professorial minimum still the best part of £1,000 below the Cambridge base salary (£38,993)—would be an efficient use of resources. It would do little to solve the serious problems of comparability and difficulties of recruitment, while representing quite a large commitment of money.
8 The second option would be to revise the scheme for distinction awards. The committee unanimously prefers this alternative way of proceeding. It proposes that there should be three new levels of award, as follows:
£
2,000
5,478 existing awards
8,212 existing awards
12,318
16,424
(thus permitting a maximum salary, for non-clinical professors without a departmental allowance, of £53,251).
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9 The introduction of a wider range of awards would, in the committee's view, address a number of problems of comparability with other institutions, and would allow for a sizeable increase in salaries for many current professors across the range of distinction (thus to a large extent also dealing satisfactorily with the question of comparability with the salaries of Cambridge professors and of Oxford tutorial fellows). Most importantly, in the committee's view, it would help recruitment by making it even clearer than at present that although there is a basic Oxford professorial salary, additional awards are available and that in the course of an appointment here there would be regular opportunities for individuals to be considered for substantial salary increases. This would markedly improve the University's ability to attract an appropriate field for professorships and enhance the likelihood that distinguished invitees would not decline on salary grounds.
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10 Having reached agreement on this, the committee has spent considerable time discussing the procedure for the conferment of the awards and the management of the limited cash sums available, since the introduction of new levels of award, combined with concern about recruitment, has obvious implications for the procedures used for making awards. Under existing arrangements, the next round of the conferment of awards by the Committee on Distinction Awards will take place in 1997, the awards taking effect from 1 October 1997. The Academic Salaries Committee is clear that, given the recruitment difficulties referred to above, the new levels of award should be introduced as soon as possible and that, since it would be inequitable for them to be available only to newly appointed professors, the 1997 round should be advanced to 1996 so that all those already in post should have the opportunity of being considered (if they wish) for the whole of the proposed new range. The suggested sequence of events is as follows.
(a) The Vice-Chancellor continues (see 1 (b) above), where appropriate, to make awards to invitees at the existing levels after due consultation during the coming months.
(b) The Committee on Distinction Awards then considers applications from professors in post and from those who have accepted chairs but have not yet taken them up for awards in the new range at an appropriate time in 1996 (which may well not be until the Long Vacation of that year) and allocates the available sums (see below) to take effect from 1 October 1996.
(c) Future general exercises should take place at two-yearly intervals and the Vice-Chancellor should, in the interval between exercises, have sufficient funds available to be able to make awards under the procedure described below. For the reasons also given below, it is the committee's view that in the future such awards should be permanent and, moreover, the interim awards made since the 1994 exercise and any others made under (a) above before the 1996 review should become permanent.
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11 For a distinctions award round in 1996, the following sums will be available (all figures are net of superannuation and USS and are in 1995–6 terms):
(i) Funds from existing resources devoted to these
purposes, released by retirement, resignation, etc.:
£66K
(ii) New money
[Note: 2]:
£216K
Total:£282K
12 One possible allocation of these funds would produce, for example, the following distribution. It includes an assumed nine interim awards made by Mr Vice-Chancellor (between the 1994 and 1996 exercises), which become recurrent, two at £8K and seven at £5K. (Actual commitments at the time of writing this report amount to £28K.)
£16 £12 £8 £5 £2 £0
7 14 22 57 19 61
(Distribution after -- -- 31 70 -- 72)
exercise w.e.f.
1.10.94
(Projected distribution -- -- 24 61 -- 95)
as 1.10.96, before
new awards are made
The distribution in the top line of the table above would be reached by the
following changes in the existing distribution of awards:
£8K—£16K 7
£5K—£16K 0
£0K—£16K 0
£8K—£12K 12
£5K—£12K 2
£0K—£12K 0
£5K—£ 8K 15
£0K—£ 8K 0
£0K—£ 5K 6
£0K—£ 2K 19
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13 The above distribution commits all available recurrent funds. If the Vice-Chancellor is to be free to make permanent awards between the regular reviews, funds need to be available to him; the committee considers, on the basis of the average number of appointments made each year and the distribution of awards given in the above table, that perhaps some £60K per annum would be required. The committee has considered whether some of the available recurrent funds should be held back in the 1996 exercise or whether a bid might be made at this stage for additional recurrent money. On the former, the committee thinks that, if those already holding chairs here are to be given a reasonable chance of securing an award under the new arrangements, the maximum amount of available money should be used in the 1996 exercise at what is inevitably an awkward transitional point. On the possibility of a bid for extra funds, the committee is clear that, in the light of the gloomy financial outlook, this is not possible. It is however the case that there are non-recurrent savings in 1995–6 on the new money set aside at the beginning of the year. It is the committee's view that these savings (£216K) should be used to fund any awards made between the 1996 and 1998 exercises. This seems more than sufficient. If £60K per annum is needed the full cost of new awards over the two years would be £180K. In the 1998 exercise, those awards will have to be the first charge on the recurrent funds released by retirement or resignation. It may be that at that point there will be little, if any, recurrent money available for the review and the issue of whether additional funds should be provided will have to be tackled then. It is possible on the other hand that the system may be in a steady state by 1998; much depends on the age distribution of the awards in 1996. Time alone will tell. It is not an ideal arrangement but in the committee's view it is preferable to launch the new range of distinction awards with as much money as possible and to introduce at once a reasonable distribution of awards.
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14 The criteria applied by the Committee on Distinction Awards for Non-clinical Professors are `outstanding academic distinction and/or contribution to the academic work of the University (e.g. in leadership in, or in the development of, some field of study)'. The Committee on Academic Salaries has discussed whether it would be desirable to amend the criteria to reflect the way in which awards can act as recruitment incentives (and for retention purposes, though there is little evidence that among Oxford staff it is the professors whom the University is most at risk of losing). Although such amendment would have some attractions (principally of simplicity, in expressly permitting recognition of `market' considerations and in determining whether, and if so at what level, an award should be made to a new professor) the committee has agreed that it would be preferable to maintain the current position that the awards are made solely on academic merit. To follow the `market' principle would inevitably lead to differential salaries being paid as a function of the field of the post (since the University's current arrangements for stipends are variably uncompetitive by subject). The committee does not think that this would be appropriate. It is in any case much less easy for this University than for others to apply the market principle since Oxford is unusual in employing, and seeking to recruit, a `galaxy of stars'. Moreover the University is more used to distinguishing between individuals on grounds of distinction rather than on the basis of market forces. Most importantly perhaps, a switch in emphasis in the latter direction might make the proposals now favoured by the committee for the extension of distinction awards more controversial in the University than they would otherwise be.
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15 The committee suggests the following arrangements (which formalise the careful steps which the Vice-Chancellor already takes before he agrees that an interim award should be made). Once an electoral board has agreed on an invitee, the Vice-Chancellor should, in each case, and in consultation with a number of suitably qualified individuals such as the chairman of the electoral board, at least two members of the Committee on Distinction Awards, and at least one person external to Oxford, decide on the appropriate salary—i.e. which, if any, distinction award should be added to the basic stipend. As already stated above (para. 10 (c)), such awards should not be interim ones, as at present, but permanent, like those made by the Committee on Distinction Awards. This salary would be specified in the invitation to accept election to the chair, and would be non-negotiable, not least since the procedure in this regard would be set out in further particulars for chairs so that candidates would have every opportunity at the point of application to ensure that the University was aware of their merits. (The committee envisages that if the new arrangements are set out in further particulars it will be appropriate not to quote any particular salary level in advertisements for professorial appointments—as Council has already agreed, on the recommendation of the Working Party on Statutory Posts.)
16 The committee realises that this proposal might mean that the salaries on appointment which would be offered to invitees in some cases might exceed the level required to secure an acceptance. However it firmly believes that if differential salary arrangements are available at all on appointment, it is necessary to consider the appropriate starting salary of all incoming staff, on grounds of fairness and consistency. Hitherto, caught between the need to recruit the best candidates and the need to keep to the absolute minimum the number of ad hoc salary arrangements (bearing in mind the arrangements recognised by Congregation), Vice-Chancellors have perforce made special arrangements only when an invitee has raised difficulties over the level of the basic stipend. In the longer term and as a permanent arrangement this cannot be regarded as equitable and may even be open to legal challenge.
17 The committee recognises that proposals for permanent distinction awards on appointment may be controversial. However, it believes that it is not satisfactory for either the invitee, the Vice-Chancellor, or the Committee on Distinction Awards to have to deal with the current possibility that the starting salary might in due course be reduced, conceivably permanently, at the next review.
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18 In summary therefore the committee recommends
(i) the introduction of three new levels of distinction award;
(ii) the introduction of biennial exercises for the conferment of such awards, the first such exercise to be held in 1996;
(iii) that the possibility of the conferment of a distinction award be considered for every invitee to a professorship and that awards made at the time of appointment (including such awards made since the 1994 exercise) be permanent;
(iv) that the procedure for making awards on appointment be formalised as above;
(v) that the criteria for making awards, both on appointment and in biennial exercises, remain as at present, i.e. academic merit (see para. 14);
(vi) that the financial arrangements until the 1998 exercise be as set out above in para. 13, all available recurrent money being committed in the 1996 exercise.
19 The committee further recommends
(vii) that its report be published in the Gazette and that Congregation be invited to approve a general resolution endorsing these proposals.
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£
Basic salary 35,859
Departmental allowances
Schedule I 6,242
Schedule II 4,140
Schedule III 3,127
Schedule IV 1,587
Distinction awards 5,334
7,996
(Following the last triennial exercise 31 professors received the higher distinction award, 70 the lower, and 72 no award. Some heads of department of course receive both a departmental allowance and a distinction award.)
On the basis of table A, Oxford's basic salary before 1 April 1995 was at the median for Humanities, just below it for Social Studies, and well below it in the case of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics. (The figure for clinical and pre-clinical subjects includes salaries on clinical academic scales and is not therefore helpful for the present purposes.) It will be seen that for Science and Engineering, payments of the basic salary plus a Schedule I allowance bring Oxford professors above the median but not into the upper quartile in either case. For Science, payment of a Schedule II allowance and a lower-level distinction award would achieve this. For Engineering, a Schedule I allowance and a lower-level distinction award, or a Schedule II allowance and a higher-level award, would be necessary to do so.
Some care is needed in interpreting this table because it includes London figures and therefore London weighting. UCEA has not provided a breakdown both by geographical locality and by subject but has released other information which analyses by geographical area payment to deans and to heads of department combined. The median London salary in that case is £41,798, against £38,007 for the South, £39,150 for the Midlands–Wales (which would include Oxford on the definitions used by this survey), and £38,738 for the North, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. A difference here of the order of £3K between London and the rest gives some indication of the likely extent to which London salaries may have influenced the figures in table A.
Table B gives comparative information for professors without departmental responsibilities and this is obviously of particular interest given that the vast majority of the Oxford professoriate does not receive a departmental allowance. From this it will be seen that for all subjects (apart again from Medicine), Oxford's base salary in 1994–5 was in the lower half of the range but above the lower quartile. For all such professors who received a lower merit award it was however in the upper quartile, except for Mathematics etc., Management, and Education (but in none of these did it fall short of the quartile by more than a few hundred pounds).
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LQ M UQ Sample
£ £ £ No.
Clinical and pre-clinical
subjects 51,165 62,500 86,980 155
Subjects and professions
allied to Medicine 36,617 38,706 41,011 16
Science 35,985 39,625 44,379 112
Engineering and
Technology 38,619 42,124 46,616 52
Built Environment 35,399 38,436 41,398 6
Mathematical Sciences,
IT, and Computing 34,500 38,700 43,750 43
Business and Management 36,660 40,105 43,503 52
Social Sciences 33,425 36,500 40,798 93
Humanities 32,602 35,819 38,700 171
Art, Design, and
Performing Arts 29,646 35,871 39,401 20
Education 33,120 35,468 40,429 32
Note. For comparison, at the same date Oxford's figures for basic salary, plus head-of-department allowance, but without distinction awards, were:
Schedule I £42,101
Schedule II £39,999
Schedule III £38,986
Schedule IV £37,446
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LQ M UQ Sample
£ £ £ No.
Clinical and pre-clinical
subjects 37,675 43,754 51,165 40
Subjects and professions
allied to Medicine 34,410 37,192 38,410 18
Science 34,851 37,575 40,232 288
Engineering and
Technology 35,231 38,106 41,051 126
Built Environment 32,709 36,628 39,911 8
Mathematical Sciences,
IT, and Computing 35,201 37,958 41,648 141
Business and Management 33,946 38,235 41,470 115
Social Sciences 34,597 37,359 41,000 223
Humanities 34,509 37,000 41,045 217
Art, Design, and
Performing Arts 35,414 36,663 39,257 30
Education 34,552 37,210 41,516 44
Note. For comparison, at the same date (excluding departmental allowances but taking account of distinction awards made with effect from 1 October 1994), Oxford figures were:
basic £35,859 (paid to 42% of the professoriate) plus lower distinction award £41,193 (paid to 40% of the professoriate) plus higher distinction award £43,855 (paid to 18% of the professoriate)
[Note: 1]
This scheme is now described in the summary of this report in the explanatory
note to the General Resolution. It was referred to briefly in paras.
39–41 of the report of the Working Party on Statutory Posts (Supplement
(1) to Gazette No. 4317, 21 February 1994, p. 801).
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[Note: 2]
The net equivalent of the additional £272K set aside in the 1995–6
budget.
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