The Higher Education Policy Institute is publishing a new
report, Comparative Study of Higher Education Academic
Staff Terms and Conditions, which was commissioned from SUMS
Consulting (www.sums.org.uk).
The paper benchmarks the pay and benefits of academics based
on the various drivers of ‘Good Work’ defined by the Chartered
Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
It finds:
- many working conditions in higher education are relatively
generous, and sometimes much more so, than in other sectors – for
example, in areas like pensions, leave, sick pay, parental leave
and access to sabbaticals; but
- in some other areas, academics face conditions that are less
good than those in other professions, most notably in regard to
the proportion of staff on temporary contracts.
A more detailed RAG table is shown in the
actual report
, Director of HEPI,
said:
“We know this paper will be deemed controversial by some. But
that is because it is novel. We have been living through multiple
years of industrial action in the higher education sector without
a secure evidence base on whether academics have relatively good
or comparatively poor terms and conditions.
“The results show a nuanced picture. On the areas that have been
most associated with the recent industrial action – pay and
pensions – academics compare well to those in other professions.
Generous occupational pension schemes of the sort that
disappeared years ago for most staff in the private and
charitable sectors remain the norm in academia.
“The position of academics is also favourable in areas like the
amount of leave, maternity and paternity arrangements and the
likelihood of being entitled to a sabbatical. The report says
academics’ sick pay is 13 times more generous than the statutory
minimum.
“However, the evidence brought together also confirms that
academics score poorly on wellbeing and mental health, with
excessive workloads and expectations commonly having a
detrimental impact on their lives.
“The most important finding is that the expense of the extra
benefits enjoyed by academics on permanent contracts come at the
cost of younger staff at an earlier stage in their careers, who
can struggle to move on up. For newer academics, it can be much
harder to find secure and permanent contracts than it is for
employees in other sectors.
“Those on both sides of the recent – and current – industrial
disputes in higher education would do well to reflect on what
more can now be done to tackle precarity in higher education. On
the basis of this research, that seems a more urgent priority,
for example, than forever protecting gold-plated pensions against
all change.”
Bernarde Hyde, Group CEO of SUMS,
said:
“SUMS was commissioned by HEPI to undertake an objective review
of published data available in, and of, the UK. We present the
results with no position.
“This data, as any benchmarking, is not an end in itself, but
instead signposts the sector to areas that may require deeper
investigation. Indeed, performing well comparatively does not
mean that there is not room for improvement.”
