ON its website the University of St Andrews advises that its court "has overall responsibility for the governance of the university, including all aspects of strategic planning plus management of all resources, whether financial, human or physical".
How disappointing then is the outgoing principal's antipathy ("St Andrews professor takes aim at bureaucracy in Scots institutions", The Herald, May 29) towards the forthcoming Higher Education Governance Bill which will, amongst other measures, require the inclusion of trade union members on university courts. Regrettably, Universities Scotland previously showed the same negative attitude in their response to the Scottish Government's consultation on the bill, as reported previously by you ( "University principals tell ministers: we don't want trade unions on our courts", The Herald, February 3).
Surely Louise Richardson would not seek to deny university staff the opportunity of meaningful participation in the making of decisions which might directly or indirectly affect their terms and conditions?
She must accept that the way our (free market) economy works - namely governed by the law of supply and demand - means that austerity budgets do not apply to her and that she and her fellow principals can continue to receive ever-increasing incomes whatever the prevailing economic conditions outwith university walls.
In fact her basic salary as of January this year was in the region of £255,000 and I would hazard a guess that the average basic salary of those cleaners, librarians, kitchen and maintenance staff, laboratory assistants and so on who also work at St Andrew's was but a tiny fraction of that.
Despite Mrs Richardson's misgivings though, the Scottish Government's attempt to legislate for a trade union presence on university courts will I think be warmly welcomed by the many thousands of men and women employed in that sector. For my part the existence of organised labour in all of our workplaces is arguably one of the pre-requisites of a civilised society and so It is heartening to see that Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (some 15,000 of whose members reportedly belong to a trade union) share the self-same belief.
Kors Allan,
7 Whitingford, Edinburgh.
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