Sabbatical payout pushes Oxford spending on v-cs past £1 million

Former University of Oxford vice-chancellor Dame Louise Richardson left the institution with an award of £423,407 – the equivalent of a year’s pay – on top of her usual salary, newly published accounts reveal.

Oxford’s financial statements show that the institution spent more than £1 million employing Dame Louise and her successor, Irene Tracey, during 2022-23.

Dame Louise, whose annual salary was set at £422,000, was paid £176,000 for the five months she was in office between August 2022 and the end of that year. Along with other members of the senior leadership team, she also received a bonus “in recognition of exceptional leadership during the pandemic” which, in Dame Louise’s case, went towards what the accounts call “other remuneration” worth an extra £23,000.

Other benefits and pension costs took her remuneration to £289,000, but by far the biggest outlay was the £423,407 payment in lieu of an entitlement to take a sabbatical. This meant Dame Louise’s total remuneration stood at £712,000.

Professor Tracey’s pay has been set at £397,000 after she chose to forgo an 8.4 per cent pay rise awarded to Dame Louise in 2019 and to instead take only the national pay increments awarded to all higher education staff since then. In the seven months of 2023 covered by the financial statements, she was paid a basic salary of £232,000, with other benefits taking her total remuneration to £336,000.

This took Oxford’s outlay on the two vice-chancellors it employed during 2022-23 to £1.05 million.

“The vice-chancellor’s pay is required to reflect the complex responsibilities of leading the world’s highest-ranked university in the face of ever-increasing global competition,” Charles Harman, independent chair of the committee that sets the Oxford head’s salary, told Times Higher Education. “This year saw the arrival of a new vice-chancellor, Irene Tracey, who chose to forgo the salary increase awarded to her predecessor in 2019.”

Professor Tracey has also waived her right to a sabbatical year or any payment in lieu, Oxford said.

Analysis by THE of 18 of the 24 members of the Russell Group to have published their accounts at the time of writing puts their vice-chancellors’ median total pay package at £398,000, up from £390,500 among the same providers’ accounts the year before.

The London School of Economics spent a total of £533,000 on Dame Minouche Shafik during her final year as vice-chancellor, while her interim successor Eric Neumayer received £41,000 for the final six weeks of the year – a combined total of £574,000.

UCL spent £509,849, the third highest in the group, on president Michael Spence. This was followed by the £499,000 paid by the University of Cambridge across the three vice-chancellors it employed during this academic year – former leader Stephen Toope, interim head Anthony Freeling, and incumbent Deborah Prentice. 

Meanwhile, the University of Exeter’s accounts reveal that vice-chancellor Lisa Roberts was paid a £50,750 bonus last year, taking her total remuneration to £405,000. The year before she also received a bonus of £48,125.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com