[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

I was chatting to an accountant yesterday and he was telling me that the head university don in Bolton is earning £600,000 a year and that same job seven years ago was worth £60,000 a year.

Good for him, I wish my job would pay that much.

Incidentally, £60k doesn't sound like much for a head don at even a university like Bolton.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

Whether people like it or not, being warm, caring and fluffy doesn't run a country or its economy. The conservatives are a much safer set of hands when it comes to that, and when thats done correctly, everyones lives improve.

I'm not being flippant here but... when? They've been in for 8 years now and lives are not improving. National debt has continued to soar - the crash caused it to balloon from 0.5 trillion under labour to 1 trillion, but since the Tories have been in it has increased another 50% to 1.5 trillion, projected to hit 2 trillion by 2020 (all under Tory rule). Meanwhile, The NHS is in a worse state than ever, pensions are in a worse state than ever, local councils are struggling more than ever so local services are being halted faster than ever, and town and village centers are getting dirtier and more run down by the month.

So, when? When do the Tories safe hands improve the economy? When do "everyone's lives start to improve"? If this was 2011 you could roll out the old "Labour left a mess" rhetoric and say "give them time"... but this far down the line? You can't claim that Tory rule will inevitably improve people's lives when there is still zero evidence of that happening, and abundant evidence of people's lives being made utterly miserable by Tory decisions.

[DemolitionRed]

Originally Posted by The_Hogfather

Good for him, I wish my job would pay that much.

Incidentally, £60k doesn't sound like much for a head don at even a university like Bolton.

That's head of a department, not head of he university.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed

That's head of a department, not head of he university.

£60k still isn't much for a university HoD tbh. I still say good on him though, and I hope people would say good for me if my salary increased tenfold on as many years!

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by The_Hogfather

£60k still isn't much for a university HoD tbh. I still say good on him though, and I hope people would say good for me if my salary increased tenfold on as many years!

No they wouldn't,they would say exploiting young people with aspirations had facilitated your grotesquely inflated salary.

if you were this person

[user104658]

Originally Posted by The_Hogfather

£60k still isn't much for a university HoD tbh. I still say good on him though, and I hope people would say good for me if my salary increased tenfold on as many years!

I'd agree that £60k would be low if academic quality is to remain high; that's the main problem I guess. It can seem wrong to have very high paid people in these positions but, to put it simply, if the salary isn't attractive then the positions are going to be filled by people who are less intelligent, less insightful, less able, less creative, etc etc. as talented individuals will naturally move on to better prospects. That's not what you want in an academic environment. Students should be around people who are at the top of their game in order to be academically inspired.

That said; I also think £600k is a bit over-the-top... and would say that £250k is a much more moderate and realistic figure to strike that balance (especially when you consider that for someone advanced in academia, their salary probably isn't their only income source).