Aberdeen University, along with three other Scottish universities, has condemned a report from The University and College Union (UCU) which stated that the gender pay gap in the universities stood at thousands of pounds.

The universities mentioned in the study, Aberdeen, St Andrews, Glasgow and University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), had been accused of having significant pay gaps, but insisted that this was not the case and that the data UCU had used for the report was out of date.

While the universities accepted that there was a small pay difference between some male and female employees, they did not accept that the gap was in the thousands of pounds estimated by the UCU report.

UCU Scotland official, Mary Senior, said: "These universities should not have allowed such shameful levels of pay inequality to persist.

"It's nearly 50 years since the Equal Pay Act came into force and they're still flying in the face of it.

"We'd like to see a firm commitment from sector leaders to close the gap and are offering to work with institutions to put an end to pay inequality."

The union said UHI paid female lecturers £18,637 less a year than their male colleagues while the pay gap at Aberdeen was £9,914, Glasgow's £9,244 and St Andrews' £8,699.This was denied by all four universities.

Gender pay gap in Scottish Universities

Despite the criticism of Scottish universities following the report, which was released on International Women’s Day, all universities in the study denied that the figures were accurate, with Aberdeen University releasing their data on their own wage gap.

A spokesman for the university said: "We have worked extremely hard to redress gender pay issues. Our current gender pay gap for lecturers is 1% and for senior lecturers is 2.5%.

"The professorial pay gap has reduced in recent years to a level of 7% and we continue to address this matter through our senior staff pay policy."

All other universities named in the study denied that the figures with UHI admitting that while they had a gender pay gap, the levels seen were no way near as significant as suggested in the UCU report. A spokesman for the university said:  "The figure and gap quoted derive from the data the university submitted to Higher Education Statistics Agency in 2013/14 in respect of the small number of staff - 44 - who had academic roles and were employed directly by the university.
"A number of these roles represent the academic staff within the Centre for History and the Centre for Health Sciences, but a significant number are senior roles with pan-university responsibilities."

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