Integrity of UEA executive team questioned

Libby

Hargreaves

Editor-in-Chief

Professor David Richardson, the Vice-Chancellor (and President) of UEA, has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks- with some even calling for him to resign.

Amidst the University deficit and redundancies news, the Vice-Chancellor's pay has been questioned. His official salary is £283,000, though he has stated he will be taking a “voluntary paycut" of an unspecified amount, in light of the debt. He took a similar voluntary pay cut post-pandemic; Concrete has created this timeline of his pay since he assumed the position in 2014. In addition to this salary, the Vice-Chancellor receives an expenses allowance and has previously resided in a University expensed house worth £1.7 million.

A Freedom of Information request found University expenditure on Professor Richardson’s premisesWood Hall- to include nearly £32,000 worth of garden maintenance work. Other expenses include 10p spent on two sachets of soy sauce, a £63.25 trip to Kofra coffee, Snappy Snaps passport photo, £130 simply on “arts” at The Gallery, Cromer, and a myriad of business trips to locations including Tokyo, costing hundreds of pounds which included lavish meals expensed.

His total expenses from 2014 to 2018 are £51,880. From July 2018 to January 2020, his expenses amounted to around £15,000. He has however, reimbursed the University for his consistent use of the mini bar and some bottles of wine. The full list can be found at FOI_20-031 and FOI_19_091 on the UEA website, whilst some information was found in 2017 and has since expired from the website.

In addition to his salary, expenses and Wood Hall, the University also provided the Vice-Chancellor with a £60,000 contribution to his pension in 2021/22, an increase of £7,000 from the previous year. “As part of the decision to cease using Wood Hall...SORC confirmed that the value of the taxable benefit in kind should be added to the Vice-Chancellor's base salary”.

One student expressed their frustration at these figures, stating it “frankly seems ridiculous”, whilst UCU describe pension cuts as a reason for the current strikes: “The package of cuts made last year will see the average member lose 35% of their guaranteed future retirement income. For those at the beginning of their career the losses are in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

Professor Richardson’s wife, Andrea Blanchflower, also works for the University- in addition to being a Governer for City College Norwich. She is on the Governance Committee for UEA, which ensures “the University follows best practice in governance matters including maintaining an over-arching view on corporate governance of the University, considering recommendations from the Committee of University Chairs and commissioning independent reviews of governance at least every three years” amongst other duties.

Other members of senior management have also had their integrity questioned.

Concrete has discovered the new Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Professor Christine Bovis-

Cnossen, was previously named in a 2016 vote of no confidence at Thompson Rivers University. Just under half of the faculty voted, amounting to an overwhelming 81% in support of a lack of confidence in the senior management team. This followed the suspension of Derek Pyne, after he spoke up about his colleagues’ role in publishing for “predatory publications”. It was reported that Bovis-Cnossen's response to the outcry and request for more information on the reasons for Pyne’s suspension was that the University “can’t divulge personal information” about him “without his prior written consent”, to which Pyne responded with his written permission.

History could repeat itself for the Provost as UEA UCU have already released its “don’t destroy UEA” campaign which calls for a “no confidence” vote in the UEA executive team”.

The Guardian ranked UEA as the 14th best UK University in 2015, and the 41st in 2022.