Higher Education workers reap most benefits in public sector

According to research, university staff have the most competitive pay increases, shorter working weeks, more holiday allowance and better maternity provision than the rest of the public sector. The two reports published by the University and College Employers Association (UCEA) demonstrated the higher education staff have received the best pay increases in the field of public services in the past few years.
Salaries rose by approximately 30 per cent between 2001 and 2007 and the framework agreement has enabled employers to identify and tackle equal pay across all employee groups, according to the reports.
Staff at universities and colleges with fixed weekly hours work between 35 and 37 hours a week; a slight reduction on the previous amount of 38 or 39 hours.
94 per cent of the institutions surveyed offer maternity pay provisions above the statutory entitlement and three quarters offer flexible working.
Professor Bill Wakeham, Chair of UCEA said: “Working in HE has always offered challenges of an intellectual kind and been associated with a very considerable output for public good, whether among the academic or support staff.” He added that, “over the last few years a very considerable effort has been made to recognise the large contributions from staff by means of various enhanced elements of an overall reward package.”
Sally Hunt, the University and College Union (UCU) warned that, “UCEA member institutions may have provided information on contracted hours, but this blatantly disregards the actual hours worked each week by academics and paints a misleading picture.”