2020 voluntary pay cut for staff earning more than £100k per annum

University of Cambridge did not have the information requested.

Dear University of Cambridge,

In 2020, the Vice-Chancellor announced that staff earning more than £100,000 per annum are invited to take a voluntary pay cut of 10 per cent. I should like to know, please, how many clinical and non-clinical staff have taken that pay cut and the total amount saved to date, and the projected savings to the end of the cut whenever that might be.

So as to enable meaningful comparison, please provide a spreadsheet of the information for clinical and non-clinical staff in the same £5k bands as the table in Appendix 2 of the Annual Remuneration report 2018-19[1], with columns indicating each band, the number in each band taking the cut, and the amount saved to date in each band, and the projected saving over the lifetime of the cut in each band.

David Goode

[1] https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/201...

FOI, University of Cambridge

This is to acknowledge receipt of your request for information. Your reference number is given in the subject line of this email. We will respond on or before 3 November 2020.

Regards,

Information Compliance Office
University of Cambridge
Governance and Compliance Division, The Old Schools Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN
E: [email address]

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FOI, University of Cambridge

1 Attachment

Further to your request for information, please find attached the University’s response.

Regards,

Information Compliance Office
University of Cambridge
Governance and Compliance Division, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN
E: [email address]

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Dear FOI,

Your reply has dealt with two aspects of my request – actual and projected savings – but not the primary aspect, which is the number of staff in each £5k band who are taking the pay cut. Please provide this information.

Yours sincerely,

David Goode

FOI, University of Cambridge

Dear Mr Goode,

Apologies if our reply was unclear. We do not hold this information either - we do not yet hold any data about the numbers of staff opting into this.

Regards,

Information Compliance Office
University of Cambridge
Governance and Compliance Division, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN
E: [email address]

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Dear FOI,

I cannot accept that response. The cut-off date for payroll amendments for the October 2020 payroll was ten days ago, on 5 October 2020. Therefore you now know:

* the number of staff who have requested an amendment of their salary or stipend, and who you can put in the £5k bands I requested; and
* the actual amount to be saved on the October payroll as a result.

Yours sincerely,

David Goode

FOI, University of Cambridge

Dear Mr Goode,

We will make enquiries and get back to you.

Regards,

Information Compliance Office
University of Cambridge
Governance and Compliance Division, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN
E: [email address]

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Dear FOI,

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

David Goode

FOI, University of Cambridge

Dear Mr Goode,

We have made further enquiries of the University's HR Division. We apologise that our initial response and follow-up correspondence failed to explain how this scheme will work in practice and the information that is / is not held as a result.

Senior staff may participate in the voluntary pay reduction scheme through the University's payroll giving provider, Charitable Giving (CG). CG provides the University with a list each month of who has signed up to giving to a charity, but without telling the University which charities are involved. Many staff use this facility to give to many different charities.

The University then deducts the relevant amount from each individual's pay and provides a single consolidated payment back to CG. CG then distribute the money back to the relevant charities, one of which would be the University if any staff have signed up to the pay reduction scheme. We are unable to disaggregate the payment received back from CG to attribute to any specific members of staff.

Therefore, we do not hold (and will never hold) any information that would confirm whether or not a specific individual had participated in this scheme, and the payroll deadline is not relevant in terms of the University holding information about any savings.

Regards,

Information Compliance Office
University of Cambridge
Governance and Compliance Division, The Old Schools
Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN
E: [email address]

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Dear FOI,

In that case I shall make a fresh request in May 2021 for the totals returned to the University by CG for each of the six months of the life of the scheme, with totals for each of the corresponding six months of the three previous years for comparison.

I shall be in touch again in due course with a new request.

Yours sincerely,

David Goode