Union report exposes lecturers' pay inequality

Average pay for full-time ethnic minority academic staff in some UK higher education institutions is more than 20% lower than their white colleagues, according to research by the AUT higher education union.

Using data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency for the year 2000-01, the AUT discovered that the worst offender in the "ethnicity pay gap" league was Scotland's University of St Andrews where non-whites' earnings were only 71.3% of that of whites. St Andrews was followed by the University of Luton, where ethnic minority staff earned only 74.5% of the pay of their white counterparts, and St George's Hospital Medical School in London where their pay was 75.5% of their white peers.

At the other end of the scale, non-white staff were paid on average 4.9% more than whites at St Martin's College in Lancaster, 3.4% more at Canterbury and Christ Church University, and 2.9% more at the London Business School.

The AUT found that the average annual pay of non-white full-time academic staff in the UK in 2000-01 was only 88% - an ethnicity pay gap of nearly £4,000.

Within the UK, the ethnicity pay gap was narrowest in England at just over 88%, and widest in Northern Ireland at 81%. The gap in Wales was just under 88% and was 85% in Scotland.