Report of the Remuneration Committee

The University’s Remuneration Committee is responsible for determining pay and reward for designated colleagues, including designated senior staff. 

The University recognises the guidance set out in the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) Higher Education Senior Staff Remuneration Code, and the Remuneration Committee seeks to ensure compliance with this Code. 

The Terms of Reference of the Remuneration Committee are reviewed and revised annually. This review ensures that the Terms of Reference, and the activities of the Committee, remain appropriate and compliant with relevant legislation and guidelines.  

Consistent with the Terms of Reference, the Remuneration Committee has direct responsibility for determining remuneration related matters for designated senior staff.  

During 2023/24 designated senior staff were: 

• The Vice-Chancellor. 
  
  
• The Chief Operating Officer. 

The Remuneration Committee is Chaired by a Governor, who is not the Chair of the Board of Governors. The Vice-Chancellor is not a member of the Committee. 

The Remuneration Committee also maintains an oversight role in terms of the University’s approach to wider Senior Leadership and Management remuneration. For example, the remuneration of the Pro-Vice Chancellors. 

The University recognises the importance of attracting and retaining strong leaders, to ensure that it can continue to execute its strategy of Transformational Education. When considering matters of remuneration, the Committee is required to balance many factors, including the wider context of the Higher Education sector, University performance, market rates of pay, inflation, external perceptions of senior pay, and internal equity factors. 

To assist in delivering this balance, the Committee has access to a range of information to inform decision making, including: 

• Individual and University-level performance data. 

• Sector pay bargaining information, from the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA). 

• Higher Education sector benchmark remuneration data for senior staff in similar profile universities (i.e. similar size/scale institutions, post 1992 institutions, institutions in the same group), including the UCEA Senior Staff Remuneration Survey. 

• Wider benchmark remuneration data for senior staff in other sectors, from a variety of external sources. For example, the annual report from The Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB). 
  
  
• The current median pay ratio of the Vice-Chancellor to all colleagues. 

During 2023/24 the Remuneration Committee met once, in July 2024. This was a face-to-face meeting, with full attendance from Committee members.  

At this meeting, the Committee addressed several agenda items, including: 

• Annual review of the Remuneration Committee constitution and Terms of Reference. 

• Continued adoption of the CUC Higher Education Senior Staff Remuneration Code. 

• Oversight of the annual pay award for senior managers on spot salaries and the Senior Management pay scale. 

• Annual review of Pro-Vice Chancellor pay arrangements. 
  
  
• Annual review of designated senior staff performance and remuneration. 

As has been well documented in the Higher Education sector, financial sustainability remains a significant challenge for many Universities. This reflects several factors, notably the continued freeze in domestic tuition fees (which has the effect of reducing University income in real terms over time), inflationary pressures impacting the cost of operations, and wider factors that have influenced the number of students choosing to commence Higher Education (for example, changes to immigration rules for some potential international students). 

At the University of Winchester, several actions were taken during 2023/24 to strengthen the financial position. These actions included Voluntary Severance Schemes for colleagues, compulsory redundancies, and wider cost saving measures (for example, review of other operating expenditure). The Remuneration Committee were cognisant of this context when reaching decisions relating to remuneration for designated senior staff.  

Given the challenging market context, and despite the strong performance of designated senior staff during the past twelve months, the Remuneration Committee made the difficult decision to not make an annual pay award (consolidated or non-consolidated) for designated staff in 2024.  

1. The Committee noted that the Vice Chancellor had previously not accepted salary increases (of 3% respectively) offered in both 2022 and 2023. 
   
   
2. The Committee noted that the VC’s salary expressed as a multiple of the median of all other employees of the University was reported as 5.7 in the most recent published Annual Report and Accounts.   

The Committee confirmed that the sole reason for not making an annual pay award (consolidated or non-consolidated) for designated staff in 2024 was the University’s financial context, and that in a ‘normal’ year, the strong performance of the designated staff, coupled with the wider benchmarking data reviewed, would have supported a pay award being made. 

The contribution of the designated staff in driving sustained transformation across the University during 2023/24 was noted and strongly supported by the Remuneration Committee on behalf of the Board of Governors.  

The Remuneration Committee was also aware, in reaching the decision for designated senior staff, that the University had taken a decision to not make an annual pay award for wider Senior Leadership and Management roles in 2024 – again, reflecting the University’s financial context. The Committee noted, in particular, the continued development of senior colleagues, and the positive individual and collective contributions that the Senior Leadership and Management team have made to the University’s performance over the past year. 

In aggregate, this means that no Executive, Senior Leader, or Manager of the University of Winchester has received an annual pay award for 2024. The Committee noted that this, in no way, reflected the performance, contribution or impact of those designated senior staff, wider Senior Leadership and Management colleagues, who continue to work tirelessly to transform the University and provide the best possible student and staff experience.