Our Dundee correspondent reports:
The UCU has always championed the need for colleagues who move house to receive adequate relocation payments, so it was interesting to read that Dundee’s local UCU branch has not been quite so complimentary about the £40,000 ‘disruption allowance’ (we’re not making this name up) paid to its new Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Atherton, earlier this year to enable him to make the long journey north from Lancaster. A spokesperson from the UCU in Scotland noted that the payment would ‘make it more difficult for us to make the case for much-needed improved public funding for our universities.’
More details are available:
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/13/professor-300000-given-40000-help-move-house-9510297/
The subtext reader’s eye might be drawn to the disclosure that ‘a minute of the university’s remuneration committee from November detailed the payments.’ Wow – does this mean that Dundee has a remuneration committee whose minutes are openly published?! Indeed it does, and you can read all about Dundee’s rationale and justification for Prof Atherton’s big package by going to:
https://www.dundee.ac.uk/governance/governance/court/court-agendas-minutes/
and scrolling through the minutes of the November 2018 and February 2019 Court meetings. But – surely such levels of transparency would cause the sky to fall in? As they say in Dundee, naw.