UNIVERSITY principals have come under fire after hiring a firm of lobbyists to prepare for an evidence session at the Scottish Parliament.
Universities Scotland, which represents principals, employed the London and Edinburgh-based Charlotte Street Partners, a parliamentary lobbying firm, in September for an undisclosed fee.
The arrangement was made just weeks before university principals gave evidence on controversial legislation which will change the way the sector is run.
She said: "We have been pleased to have some external and objective advice in what was an important session for us as an organisation, and we have no hesitation in this being known publicly."
Mary Senior
However, Mary Senior, Scotland Official for the University and College Union, questioned the decision.
She said: "People will understandably question why principals felt they needed hired help to answer questions from MSPs on how their universities are run.
"We feel that their time and resources could have been better spent engaging with their staff and students on the issue rather than paying people to try and teach them how to spin their side of a story.
"Ironically, better scrutiny of our universities will hopefully now expose just what principals are spending large sums of public money on."
Robin McAlpine, director of the left-wing think tank Common Weal, who also appeared at the meeting, also questioned the use of university funding.
He said: "There is nothing technically improper in higher education institutions hiring lobbyists, except that paying for it with public money may not look brilliant,” he said.
“Universities Scotland has already a quite big in-house team and if it goes outside that, it is always going to look a bit less than completely clean.”
The education committee is currently scrutinising the proposed Higher Education Governance Bill which includes proposals to appoint trade union members to universities' ruling Courts for the first time and make the powerful post of Court chair elected.
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