All sides of the debate 3

Prudence has been a quality singularly lacking in the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association's actions in the pay dispute ("V-cs start to dock pay", May 12).

Once it was known that top-up fees were to be introduced, an intelligent policy would have been to hold three-way discussion between the funding councils, Ucea and the academic unions, and produce an agreed strategy for using a portion of the extra income to address the widely recognised problem of academic pay.

Now it is clear that the extra income is to be frittered away on worthless bureaucracy, vanity projects and covering up for management errors. Much of the smooth and effective day-to-day operation of university departments depends on the goodwill of academics.

The contempt for academic staff expressed in Ucea's offer and in some of the comments made by the employers has destroyed that goodwill, poisoned the relationships between academic staff and students, and between academic staff and management.

R. J. Wootton Llanbadarn Fawr