SCOTLAND’s highest-paid university principal is facing fresh scrutiny of his outside interests after it emerged he has more than one job with multi-billion pound corporations.
Strathclyde University’s Sir Jim McDonald, who earns an extra £57,000 a year as a non-executive director of the Weir Group, is also chair of the audit committee at energy giant Scottish Power.
However, the University has refused to say how much he gets paid from Scottish Power.
Vonnie Sandlan, the President of the National Union of Students in Scotland, said: “It’s vital that we have full transparency about the second jobs and outside interest of those leading our publicly-funded institutions.”
The Sunday Herald revealed last week that Sir Jim’s remuneration package had soared to £360,000 last year.
The sum includes unspecified benefits-in-kind and is worth more than the salaries of the Prime Minister and First Minister combined.
He also has lucrative interests in the corporate world that top up a salary that is the highest in the Scottish university sector.
It was already known he receives around £57,250 a year for being on the board of Glasgow-based Weir Group, which has a turnover of around £2bn.
He held a similar position at Scottish Power Energy Networks Holdings Limited, but he left this role in November 2015.
Weeks later, however, Sir Jim joined the full board of Scottish Power Ltd and he currently chairs its audit and compliance committee.
Neither the company nor the University has revealed how much money he receives for the job and the higher education institution declined to say how many days a year he works for Scottish Power.
He is also a director of Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. A company spokesman told this newspaper in 2014 that McDonald would be entitled to £12,000 a year for his duties.
His known external fees come to around £69,000 which, on top of his £360,000 a year University remuneration, takes his overall package to at least £429,000.
The revelations will again raise questions about high paid staff taking on lucrative outside employment
Scottish Enterprise chief executive Lena Wilson, whose financial package stands at £276,000 a year, also receives around £68,000 a year for her non-executive directorship of inspection firm Intertek.
Sandlan said: “It’s become the status quo for university principals to receive six figure salaries, before benefits – with principals' pay regularly exceeding the salary of even the First Minister. Now, though, we must question how much time any outside interests take up, the pay and benefits they receive from these endeavours and, perhaps most importantly, how much the institution and students within it benefit from the principals' external activities.”
Mary Senior, the Scotland official at the lecturers’ UCU trade union, said: “We welcome universities having strong links with industry, and with Strathclyde’s history and reputation we’d expect there to be a good relationship with a major employer like Scottish Power. What is hard for staff working in universities to understand is why they’ve had a 1.1 per cent pay rise imposed on them while principals are free to continue to take on second and third jobs with extra salaries which many people working in universities on zero and atypical contracts could only dream of.”
A spokeswoman for the University of Strathclyde said: “We welcome our staff engaging with external organisations, which helps the University to stay connected to business, benefiting academic research and the wider economy.”
A Scottish Power spokesperson said: “Sir Jim McDonald is a non-executive member of the Scottish Power Board and Chairman of the Audit Committee. Previously he served on the SP Energy Networks Board.”
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