UNIVERSITIES have come under fire for threatening to withhold extra pay from lecturers.

The issue has arisen after academics across the UK took industrial action over cuts to their pensions.

Union leaders accept pay will be withheld for strike days, but say some universities - including Stirling and St Andrews - are threatening academics with further salary sanctions if they do not rearrange missed lectures.

Mary Senior, UCU Scotland official, said: “Universities will need staff goodwill when this dispute is over, so it seems foolish to see universities maximising the financial punishment of their staff.”

A spokesman for St Andrews said any money withheld from staff would go directly to a student hardship fund.

He added: “We have always done this in St Andrews on the few occasions there has been industrial action.”