Fury over university pay criteria

The AUT dismissed the plans as bureaucratic

England's universities and higher education colleges have been told they must draw up "human resource strategies" in order to receive extra cash for salary rises.

The Association of University Teachers (AUT) reacted angrily to the plans issued by the funding council, saying the extra £320m had been "hijacked by performance-related pay and bureaucracy".

Click here for strategy guidelines

"The money should go direct to staff - they shouldn't create hoops for us to jump through," a spokesman for the AUT said.

When the Education Secretary, David Blunkett, announced universities' funding last November he made it clear that part of it was for salary increases.

But in return he demanded "clear and satisfactory plans" as to how the institutions would improve quality and management.

Now the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) has said that funding will be released to individual institutions for three years on receipt of a strategy that identified objectives, explained how the money would be spent and set specific targets.

Strategies should also include a set of "institutional objectives for recruiting, retaining, rewarding and developing staff" which could be easily monitored by Hefce.

Poor performance

And institutions must also outline what action was being taken to tackle poor performance - a clause which has been criticised by the AUT.

David Triesman, general secretary of the AUT, said: "The Secretary of State has made additional funds available to address the pay gap identified in the Bett report.

"These are deplorable proposals that seem far removed from David Blunkett's original announcement.

"The funding council no longer seem to recognise the people who represent the workforce with whom they have to deal," Mr Triesman said.

Each HR strategy must cover the following six areas:

• recruitment and retention difficulties
• staff development and training
• equal opportunities targets
• regular reviews of staffing needs, reflecting the changes in market demands and technology
• annual performance reviews of all staff
• action to tackle poor performance.

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