University chief says sector has lost the public argument over vice-chancellors’ pay and suffered damage to its reputation

The university sector’s response to the debate about vice-chancellors’ pay has been embarrassing and humiliating and has damaged its reputation, the head of the University of Buckingham has said.

Sir Anthony Seldon, a political historian who has been vice-chancellor at the university since 2015, said: “The sector has not reacted well. We have lost the public argument and we should have responded earlier when it first came up.”

“We should have said we were going to look at what vice-chancellors get paid through an independent review. It has been embarrassing and humiliating, the whole episode, and damaged us nationally and internationally.

“At a time when staff salaries were barely increasing it was not good to let vice-chancellor and top salaries increase so much and without a clear explanation as to why.”

Seldon’s comments follow revelations that the departing vice-chancellor of Bath Spa, one of the UK’s smaller universities, was paid more than £800,000 in her final year in the role. The University of Sussex vice-chancellor, Prof Michael Farthing, was also handed more than £250,000 in his final year in the job.

The universities minister, Jo Johnson, has called on universities to restrain the pay of senior management after research by the University College Union showed that vice-chancellors’s average pay had risen to £278,000 in 2015-16.

Seldon, who took a pay cut this year and in 2016 and earns £150,000 a year, said he felt remuneration should be capped depending on the size of the institution.

“I think probably for top universities it should be around £350,000 and for others it should be around £150,000, depending on their size and performance ... I run a small uni and we only have 3,000 students. We are a small university and £150,000 seems right to me.” Seldon’s salary was reduced from £185,000 last year.

“There should be an independent review around this whole position,” he said. “Now we need an independent body so we have third-party reporting on what salaries should be.”

Andrew Adonis, the former Labour cabinet minister, called earlier this week for an independent inquiry chaired by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, into the “outrageous” pay of university vice-chancellors.