Cambridge vice-chancellor Professor Stephen Toope has a tough job on his hands if he is serious about his rallying call to vice-chancellors to defend what some see as their vastly inflated salaries.

Of course, it depends where he does it. It’s one thing to describe your salary of £365,000 a year as “reasonable” (note he doesn’t even describe it as “good”) in an interview with The Times. Imagine, though, trying to justify it at a social gathering - telling the teacher at a school serving a disadvantaged area: “Look, I’m worth 10 of you.” Or perhaps a nurse: “I’m 15 times more important to the wellbeing of the nation as you are.”

The Prof might well get a frosty reception at Downing Street if he tries to tell the PM that he’s twice as important to the country as the holder of her office. (I use my words advisedly as I appreciate I might spark some discussion if I declare the current incumbent is worth every penny we spend on her.)

Mind you, he might find a sympathetic ear if he engaged in conversation with Sir Craig Tunstall, executive head of a federation of eight primary schools in south London.

In fact, Sir Craig might even feel sorry for him, as he has a bigger remuneration package. It rocketed 11 per cent to £366,983 in the past year - and he is earning £36, 589 a year, now at a time when he is suspended from his job and the subject of an internal investigation by Lambeth Council.

The new normal?

I remember feeling a tinge of apprehension when my salary as education editor of The Independent was raised to £80,000 a year. How could I possibly justify that, I thought? I know I didn’t have Prof Toope’s £1billion turnover, 11,000 employees, 19,000 students or his £2 billion fundraising campaign to oversee, but I have to ask whether even a workload that he describes as “relentless” justifies nearly five times that amount. I didn’t have to look after eight primary schools like Sir Craig.

Nonetheless, I do see why the higher education watchdog the Office for Students is to scrutinise every vice-chancellor’s salary of over the prime minister’s £150, 402 a year - and why it will fine those universities whose justification is unsatisfactory. I see, too, why questions are being asked about Sir Craig’s package,

The facts are these: Professor Toope’s salary is not completely outrageous among other VCs - whose average income is £257, 904 - and isn’t the highest. Professor Dame Glenys Breakwell, of Bath University, has been voted a salary and benefits package of £451,000 a year. Similarly, Sir Craig’s salary is eye-watering, but it’s not the highest in the school sector and there are other multi-academy trust CEOs comfortably into six figures. 

Whether you like it or not, it looks like these are the kinds of salaries we are going to have to get used to. 

Life-defining moments

It is true that you never know when one of those life-defining moments is just around the corner. One of mine came when I decided to go to a nightclub with a Daily Mail reporter during a headteachers’ conference several years ago.

Those who expect a salacious fall from grace to follow that statement will be disappointed. 

The only intrigue came when the aforementioned reporter was absent from the conference the following day. I had left her at the club at 2.30am, both of us having consumed vast amounts of alcohol.

A colleague of mine put it succinctly when leaving a message of the said reporter’s mobile after I had described what had happened: “Please ring Richard immediately - he thinks he may have killed you.” 

He was joking, of course, and the reporter turned up the following day having been nursing a hangover. But I got to thinking: what if she hadn’t and just disappeared?

Likewise, another moment came when I visited a school near where I grew up and flicked through its magazine to find that a former chum had just retired as head of the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorism unit. Roger had been the drummer in our 60s band and hadn’t shown any inclination towards the police force. What if, I thought, he had become the investigating officer in this case - complete with prior-knowledge of the prime suspect’s indiscretions in his teenage years?

Brazen plug alert: These are the main themes of my debut crime thriller novel, Best Served Cold, which is available from Amazon and Umbria Press. 

Shameless, I know, but in view of my earlier salary reference, surely necessary if I am to be kept in the style to which I am accustomed...

Richard Garner was education editor of The Independent for 12 years, and previously news editor of Tes. He has been writing about education for more than three decades

To read more columns by Richard, view his back catalogue

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