Extract from Education committee transcript on Universities and Higher Education - Mar 22

Q49 Ian Mearns: They have to pay the gas bill as well, don’t they?

Professor Humphris: Yes, they have to pay the gas bill and so do I, and there is only a limited amount of resource to go round. So there are some really tough choices and I have worked really hard to keep all my staff informed about the financial context of universities. We have to find ways of diversifying to bring income in. It is a real challenge.

Quintin McKellar: Very specifically on the USS pension scheme, you are absolutely correct that the total benefits to staff have been decreased. It is still an excellent scheme and it is still better than any scheme I know of in the private sector, so we have to put that in some sort of context. Of course we would love to pay our staff more, but Debra has made the point: £9,000 in 2012 is worth £6,500 by 2024. We simply do not have the cash. I think a third of all universities are currently in deficit, or were last year, and that will increase substantially without any kind of inflationary increases in tuition fees, I’m afraid.

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