National Union of Students president Liam Burns has defended the appointment and salary of CEO-designate Ben Kernighan, and demanded an apology from trustee Edd Bauer for breaching staff protocol by condemning the NUS leadership as “pale, stale and male”.
Late last month, Bauer wrote a blog objecting to the charity’s decision to increase the CEO’s salary by 16 per cent to £100,000 and claiming that Kernighan lacked sufficient campaigning experience and commitment to the student movement cause.
Last week, NUS president Burns responded with his own blog, describing the various allegations made as “organisationally naïve”, “politically inconsistent” or “overt attempts to undermine principles long established in students’ unions”.
On the issue of Kernighan’s salary, Burns said the increase was agreed because the post of group chief executive was a new position with much larger responsibility, not an increase for an existing role. He also said the board undertook extensive benchmarking and external advice before arriving at the figure, and compared specifically against eight significant national voluntary sector organisations.
He cited Acevo’s salary survey which states that the median salary for CEOs of £15m+ charities is £90,000, with a 17 per cent mark-up for London-based organisations.
“The NUS turnover is currently £17m and in addition there is a £70m purchasing consortium. Not only in terms of our size, but also our breadth and reach, our commercial activity, our stakeholder complexity and membership size make this a much ‘bigger job’ than many of its counterparts in that income bracket.
“We could have appointed for the new role on a lower salary, but we would not have attracted the right talent,” Burns added. He also said that far from the motion on pay being “forced through” by himself, as alleged by Bauer, the paper was discussed by the board and the majority agreed. “That isn’t something being forced, it’s Edd losing an argument,” he said.
Burns also dismissed Bauer’s attempt to conflate the CEO’s pay as a trade-off with campaigning resources or affiliation fees from students’ unions. He said the amount spent on campaigning activity has increased each year for the last six years and the difference between the previous CEO salary and the news salary – around £16,000 – would “not make a scratch on the impact of our campaigns”.
'Not a placard-making role'
He defended Kernighan’s campaigning skills and experience: “I wonder if Edd realises that NCVO is a confederation of organisations that work day in day out to change people’s lives and Ben has led campaigning to secure them all sorts of support, legislative change and funding?
“Unless Edd’s point is he wants a CEO who can make a bloody good placard, I really fail to see what his problem is.”
Diversity allegation unfounded
He went on to condemn Bauer’s views on diversity at the NUS, especially his description of the leadership team as “pale, stale and male”, when ten out of 18 heads of department are women.
“NUS has a ‘staff protocol’ which basically says that it is unfair and unwarranted to criticise, positively or negatively, collectively or individually, the staff of the organisation when they can’t respond – instead you criticise the elected officers who can and are ultimately responsible.
“For Edd as a trustee to throw around phrases like ‘stale’ and link them explicitly to individuals is outrageous and cowardly when he knows they are not allowed to rebut those allegations.
“Not only that, it hugely undermines a trade union-negotiated protocol…I’d be surprised if the trade union does not pull me up for this and I’d expect an apology from Edd as soon as possible.”
Kernighan is due to take up the post of group CEO at the NUS in July.
