Another polemic on UKeU by Donald MacLeod in yesterday's higher education section of the Guardian site based on a report of yesterday's (23 June) House of Commons' education committee interrogation of Sir Howard Newby, chief executive of the funding council HEFCE, and his chairman, David Young. It's all getting terribly tacky really. I'm sure that if the community (and the 50% of UKeU staff who weren't getting such bonuses) had realized this there would have been a public outcry. The article's asserts that:
“Of the company's 75 staff, 31 were eligible for bonuses of between 3% and 100%, although the highest actually paid was 50%.” and
“John Beaumont [Chief Executive], collected a bonus of nearly �45,000 on top of his �186,000 salary.”
It seems to me that what has plagued UKeU from the very beginning was a complete lack of transparency.
“Both Sir Howard and Mr Young admitted they were 'uncomfortable' about the bonus scheme, which they only learned about when the company was being wound up after a devastating consultants' report in December 2003.”
This was public money that was being used. Nothing should have been hidden.
There's undoubtedly a lot more of this particular saga to come out. But like many such enquiries questions are being asked only of the top-level stakeholders and so, inevitably, responses will will be one version or another of the 'official' view. Even greater illumination might be possible if the various enquiries were to start asking questions further down the command chain.
