THE universities have always justified increases in the pay of principals by arguing that principals' increases reflect the annual pay settlement for all staff, about 18 per cent since 2007 as quoted in your front-page story (“Decade of bumper pay rises for principals sparks call for change”, The Herald, February 26), plus the three per cent per year that some staff get as an annual increment on their pay scales, giving a total of about 50 per cent, broadly in line with the overall dramatic pay increase for principals. This argument however is disingenuous. The annual increments are earned by young staff over the early part of their careers or newly promoted staff for a few years as they grow into their new posts and responsibilities. When they are fully equipped with the required skills and experience, they deserve the "rate for the job", that is the pay at the top of the scale. In any given year, most university staff are already at the top of their scale and so get only the nationally negotiated pay settlement.

The other trick over the years is that principals seem to take turns at getting the big pay rises, so Universities Scotland can always report that, while in any given year some principals have received very large, but of course well-earned increases, other have only an inflationary increase or occasionally no increase. But over time, as we see, most get a share of the bounty.

Regarding the current pension dispute, the third such dispute in 10 years, I have two observations.

First, as a retired university lecturer, I received from the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) a report on the USS 2017 Actuarial Evaluation. This acknowledged that the scheme had a deficit of just over £5 billion but that "the plan in place to recover this over time is well within the affordable means of the scheme's 350-plus participating employers". Further, "the trustee's 'best estimate' view of the future is that the scheme actually has a significant surplus". So what changed so suddenly to require the closure of the defined benefit scheme?

Second, on the USS website, it is stated by the USS CEO that one of the issues that has caused the problems for USS is that "investment values have soared". I assume this means that the prices of shares, bonds and so on that pension schemes invest in have increased significantly. The USS management team congratulates itself, rightly, on achieving an average 12 per cent per annum increase in the pension fund's value over the last five years, taking the fund from about £40 billion to £60 billion. Unfortunately, it seems that this apparent success is bad news because, to quote the CEO again, "Higher purchase prices now lower the future return we can expect". So look out for USS management hailing the next downturn in “investment values” as a huge boost to the prospects of our pension scheme. It's nonsense like this that supports the claim that there are serious deficiencies in the combination of investment assumptions and strategies being employed by the USS management and actuaries.

Des McGhee,

21 Douglas Muir Drive, Milngavie.