Report of the Remuneration Committee

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 2022/23 designated senior staff were:

• The Vice-Chancellor.
• The Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost.
• The Chief Operating Officer.

The Renumeration Committee is Chaired by a Governor, and 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 Management remuneration. 

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 institution performance, market rates of compensation, the challenging financial backdrop for UK Universities, 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 institutional performance data.
Higher Education 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.
Benchmark remuneration data for senior staff in other sectors, from a variety of external sources.
The current median pay ratio of the Vice-Chancellor to all staff.

During 2022/23 the Committee met twice, in March 2023 and June 2023. Both meetings took place in a hybrid manner, via Microsoft Teams and in-person attendance.

At these meetings, the Committee addressed several agenda items, including:

• Continued adoption of the CUC Higher Education Senior Staff Remuneration Code (March 2023).
• Oversight of the annual uplift for senior managers on spot salaries and the Senior Management pay scale (March 2023).
• Annual review of the Remuneration Committee constitution and Terms of Reference (June 2023).
• Annual review of Pro-Vice Chancellor pay arrangements (June 2023).
• Annual review of designated members’ performance and remuneration (June 2023).

As a result of the review of designated senior member’s performance and remuneration, including consideration of appropriate benchmarking information, the Remuneration Committee made the following decisions at the June 2023 meeting:
Pay awards totalling £10,555 in aggregate were agreed for designated senior staff (median 3% where awarded).

Of the above, £6,600 (equivalent to a3% salary uplift) was agreed for the Vice-Chancellor, noting a median pay ratio of the Vice-Chancellor to all staff of 5.8 in the most recently published Annual Reports and Accounts.

Following communication of these decisions, and consistent with last year (2021/22), the Vice-Chancellor notified the Remuneration Committee that she would be declining the salary uplift, due to the financial circumstances being faced by the University.