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High flying VC told to rein in costs

The University the Auckland's vice chancellor, Stuart McCutcheon, saw his remuneration increase yet again, according to the State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie, from less than $570,000 in 2008 to more than $610,000 in 2009. 

The University of Auckland chancellor Roger France defended the pay increase to the Sunday Star Times saying it appeared Professor McCutcheon had a $50,000 boost, when he had actually been given less than 2 percent.

"The difference was down to a quirk in the calendar that meant he was paid 25 times in 2008 and 27 times in 2009. Part of the 2008 payment is sitting in the 2009 year."

However that ignores an on-going trend that has seen Professor McCutcheon and his predecessor consistently receive significant pay increases.  In 1999 the State Services Commission reported that then vice chancellor of Auckland University, Dr John Hood, was receiving less than $200,000 per year.  Since that time inflation (CPI) has increased 31 percent and average wages have increased 43 percent, but the vice chancellor’s pay has increased over 300 percent.

The University of Auckland vice chancellor is not alone however, with virtually all tertiary education sector bosses enjoying pay increases of more than 150 percent in the last ten years. 

Mr Rennie used the release of these figures to call for pay restraint in the tertiary education sector. He noted there has been a big rise in the number of people earning more than $100,000 a year at universities, wānanga, and polytechnics.

Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sharn Riggs said however that ordinary staff in the sector have exercised considerable restraint over the last year and a half.

"Most people working in tertiary education have had pay increases less than the rate of inflation in the 18 months since the economic crisis hit. This is effectively a pay cut."

Since 1999 the lowest pay increase for TEU members has been just under 30 percent and the highest increase has been 55.5 percent.

At Unitec, for instance the lowest paid tutorial assistant earned $22,604 in the year 2000, and the highest paid principal academic staff member received $65,583.  The chief executive at the time received between $200,000 and $210,000.  That is about 8 or 9 times more than the lowest paid tutor and about 3 times more than the most highly paid academic staff member.

Now the lowest pay rate on the tutorial assistant pay scale is $28,765 and the highest pay rate for a principal academic staff member is $83,459.  By comparison last year the chief executive received between $320,000 and $330,000. That is about 14 times more than the lowest paid tutor and about 4 times more than the mist highly paid academic staff member.

Despite the substantial pay rise over the last ten years the Unitec chief executive's pay has risen by a smaller percentage than many of his other chief executive and vice chancellor colleagues. 

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Govt saves Wānanga from going overseas


2. Ministry seeks value for money


3. VUW chops and changes


4. Minister defends industry training cuts


5. CTU's alternative economic strategy


6. Other news

Govt saves Wānanga from going overseas

After two days and nights of negotiations the Prime Minister John Key has convinced senior officials at the Te Wānanga o Aotearoa not to move its business offshore. The deal follows protests and public outcry that wānanga education was special to New Zealand and created much-needed skilled employment opportunities for thousands of kiwis. 

The Prime Minister told parliamentary correspondent Paki Taunuhia that demands by the Tertiary Education Union for workers be allowed to negotiate collectively for fair pay and conditions had undermined the viability not just of the wānanga but tertiary education throughout the country.

The deal to save the wānanga will give it a special tax rebate, a discount for importing overseas students who would not otherwise have been able to study at the wānanga and the government has also agreed to pass a law removing employment rights from all union members and turning them into independent contractors.

In a special tourism tie-in Wānanga students will be required to wear modified traditional Māori clothing and sing waiata at Auckland International Airport arrival gates.

Mr Taunuhia says the country is lucky to have a Prime Minister with such acumen and business negotiation experience. 

"Who knows where the Wānanga might have gone if the Prime Minister had not intervened."

Ministry seeks value for money

'Value for money' is the Ministry of Education's closing phrase as it describes in its Annual Report the future focus for tertiary education.

For the ministry that means higher-quality qualifications, ensuring that students complete qualifications, and targeting increases in participation, retention and completion rates for Māori students, Pasifika students and students with special education needs.

It also means much more transparent performance information and "incentives for providers and students to make decisions that represent better value".

Interestingly, the Ministry of Education’s annual report is able to list responsibility for exactly "eight universities, 20 polytechnics, three wānanga, 39 industry training organisations, 14 other tertiary education providers" but it is only able to estimate "around 750 private training establishments".

It also states that approximately $2,867 million within Vote Education was spent on direct funding to tertiary providers rather than using the government's preferred statement that it spends $4.1 billion on tertiary education.

According to the report ministry's significant achievement in the last year was the development of the 2010-2015 Tertiary Education Strategy and subsequent changes to its policies to align with the strategy's goals of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, performance related funding and responding to student demands.

VUW chops and changes

Victoria University's TEU members are campaigning against yet another change proposal.  This time the university is proposing to break up its Student Academic Services (SAS) team and then merge separate parts with two separate Information Technology Services (ITS) teams.

Student Academic Services is responsible for the IT support of Victoria’s student management systems. The university is also proposing changes to ITS that local members believe will reduce its technical and strategic planning capacity. The change will also disestablish the Enterprise Architecture team which has responsibility for the overall plan, architecture and standards of IT at Victoria.

TEU organiser Michael Gilchrist says SAS staff want to continue to function as one team.

"Everyone agrees that works very well for them."

"On the other hand, the university's proposal does not have a coherent strategy behind it.  There are no measurable objectives or means of auditing the outcomes.  Risks have not been accurately identified or covered off. And, importantly, there is no support for staff – including recognition of the actual changes in roles or an adequate transition and implementation plan," said Mr Gilchrist.

"The proposal epitomises the defects we find in too many change proposals at Victoria. It is arbitrary, the alternatives have not been properly explored and we end up losing vital staff, knowledge and function. And that‘s just when, as in this case, there is no cost cutting involved."

TEU members will be asked to send hundreds of postcards to the vice chancellor next week calling for a halt to the change and better standards for change in general at the University.

Minister defends industry training cuts

Minister of tertiary education Steven Joyce is defending his decision to transfer $55 million of funding from industry training to universities, saying that the money was being poorly spent.

Mr Joyce told the Labour Party's tertiary education spokesperson Grant Robertson that the cut to industry training funding will have little, if any, effect on industry training because the funding was under-utilised or in some cases not being utilised at all.

"The member may be interested to find out that roughly 100,000 of the registered industry trainees in New Zealand achieved no credits in 2009, 100,000 of them achieved no credits in 2008, and 44,000 of them achieved no credits across 2008 and 2009. I think it is appropriate for the Government to review that situation and spend the industry training budget more wisely."

TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan says over the last two years polytechnics have been another part of the tertiary education sector to suffer very significant funding cuts.

"Polytechnics have a crucial role to play in skills development, and getting people into employment.  And they have been doing that job very successfully.  Yet they, like ITOs have lost about $50 or $60 million of funding.  If the government wants to meet the goals it set itself in its Tertiary Education Strategy it needs to support polytechnics and others involved in skills development, like ITOs. Through various cuts the government has now wiped away a massive part of our country's investment in skills and training. While we are pleased some of that has been transferred to other parts of the tertiary education sector that doesn't lift the growing financial pressure on those who work to give New Zealanders new skills and training," said Dr Ryan.

CTU's alternative economic strategy

"People are the heart of the real economy and it is our needs that the economy should work to provide. We want a society that is fairer, that tolerates neither poverty nor the human costs of high inequality, and where people are no longer economically disadvantaged by being women, Māori or Pasefika. "

That is the vision of the CTU's Alternative Economic Strategy launched this week.  The Strategy's author, CTU Economist Dr Bill Rosenberg, says the New Zealand economy has failed to achieve in crucial ways for several decades.

"The economy is failing to meet the needs of people and the environment and it is a time for serious consideration of alternatives. This is a union contribution to that process."

"Workers are not receiving the benefits of economic growth in their pay. Poverty is blighting a society that produces enough for everyone but fails to share it fairly. The economy is failing to thrive and is badly unbalanced. It fails to make best use of the skills and experience of its workforce by excluding most of them from meaningful participation in the decisions that shape their work, industry and economy. Internationally, the use of the Earth’s limited resources and misuse of many natural resources are unsustainable."

Bill Rosenberg said “The strategy includes over 100 specific policy recommendations across many areas including economic development, education, financial stability, globalisation, the environment, employment, social security, housing, retirement, inequality, worker participation and the media.”

Specific tertiary education policies include lower fees for learners willing to be bonded to work in New Zealand, employer workplace training funding conditional on skill recognition in pay scales and support of life-long learning by the right to one year of fees and allowances in every five.

You can listen to an earlier podcast interview with Dr Rosenberg .

Other news

Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (Witt) councillors will next month decide whether to pay themselves more money as the institution they help govern struggles with massive funding cuts. They will decide whether the six regular councillors should stick with their per-meeting fee of $320 or change to a salary of up to $14,400 – a 125 per cent increase. - Taranaki Daily News

Service and Food Workers' Union (SFWU) delegate Jude Young said cleaners at Massey University arrived to work about 4am on October 19 to find the doors locked, security guards waiting and three managers telling them to go home. "I have never seen all of us so gutted. Some of us were crying, it was the darkest day of our lives. I will never forget that day." Workers had no indications of a looming lockout. Mrs Young said “Cleaners "reluctantly" signed the agreement”. - Manawatu Standard

The London School of Economics, one of the world's leading universities in social sciences, has been examining the option of going private as fears grow that a rise in tuition fees will not provide sufficient funding for English universities to compete globally – The Guardian

TAFE students paid almost $300 million in fees last year, and further dramatic fee rises are expected. But a report released last week by the independent government advisory body Skills Australia says student fees account for only 4.5 per cent of TAFE revenue and argues for increased market-rate fees for certificate III and above – The Australian

Massey University has committed that, even if the government’s introduces its proposed new employment laws which deny workers their basic personal grievance rights in the first ninety days of work, those laws will not apply to staff at Massey University - TEU

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TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day, email: stephen.day@teu.ac.nz

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