Rent-free living for principal angers staff

STAFF at Aberdeen University are angry the new principal has been living rent-free despite refusing a campus home in return for a higher salary.

Professor Ian Diamond has been living in the Chanonry since July and has overseen a 180,000 revamp of the property.

Mary Senior, Scotland official for lecturers' union the UCU, said: "At a time when university staff are facing a real terms cut to pay, as well as cuts to university jobs, it is galling that a principal on an inflated salary can live rent and council tax-free for the best part of a year."

A university spokeswoman said: "Prof Diamond had initially expressed a wish not to live in Chanonry Lodge, and his salary was agreed accordingly. That position was reconsidered."

She added that Prof Diamond would pay rent from 1 March.