The vice-chancellor of crisis-hit Cardiff University, which faces a £31m-plus deficit, racked up expenses of more than £116,000 along with her pro-vice-chancellor. The scale of the expenses, which come as hundreds of jobs are at risk with entire departments earmarked for closure, have been criticised by staff and the UCU union.

Details of expenses payments have been made public by the university. They show that between November 2023 and January 2025 Cardiff's pro-vice-chancellor Rudolf Alleman filed expenses of £75,756.22 while vice-chancellor Professor Wendy Larner claimed more than £40,000 including trips to the USA and Kazakhstan where a campus is opening in September.

Among the expenses filed both claimed hotel expenses in Chicago of more than £2,000 each. Staff fighting for their jobs and the UCU said they understood the need for senior staff to travel for work but claimed the scale of the expenses was beyond that necessary. You can get more story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.

"It seems that cost-cutting is not something key leaders in the university feel they have to contribute to," one member of staff said. "I was staggered to see that both these individuals claimed hotel expenses in Chicago of over £2,000 each. Senior members taking a pay cut is clearly out of the question while academic staff are told to make cuts across the board."

The UCU said the expenses claimed were unnecessarily "lavish" in the light of the financial pressure the university is in. In January Prof Larner announced 400 jobs academic jobs would go along with the closure of degree courses and academic schools including nursing, modern languages, music, ancient history, translation, religion, and theology.

The proposed cuts are subject to a 90-day consultation which started at the end of January. Proposed job losses have now been scaled back to 355 after a number of academics took voluntary redundancy.

A Cardiff UCU spokesman said: "Like executive pay the lavish expenses being claimed by senior managers at Cardiff University are obscene at a time when hundreds of staff jobs are on the line and they are proposing to cut entire schools and programmes of study. Of course some expenses are necessary in order to run an international institution like this but not on this scale.

"The combined pay of the 17-strong university executive board was over £2.3m last year and now it emerges that they have been living it up on business class travel and splashing our cash in in luxury hotels and restaurants. Staff and students are frankly fed up with reading story after story in the press about this kind of insensitive and greedy fat cat behaviour. Just like the expensive refurbishments to grace and favour homes, point-blank refusals to take pay cuts to their bloated salaries, and the astronomical size of the salaries themselves this is one more slap in the face for our hardworking members."

Responding to the claims the university said the flights claimed were for premium economy and not business class tickets. All international travel is approved in accordance with the university’s financial regulations and the vice-chancellor’s travel is approved by the University’s Chair of Council, a spokesman said.

They added: "The Chicago trip involved, amongst other things, the vice-chancellor speaking at a high-level president’s conference; a meeting with the Discovery Partners Institute; liaison with the various University of Illinois universities and, trips to explore new and potential Transnational Education (TNE) partners. It also included liaison with the Welsh Government in Chicago. Wales needs a top-ranked university – it means that senior staff must occasionally travel to create visibility and act as brand ambassadors for Wales.

"The university’s vice-chancellor and pro-vice-chancellor (international) play a key role in meeting businesses, international partners, and donors to seek opportunities that will benefit our staff, students, and research. However we are conscious of the need for value for money and the responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint.

"Staff will use a wide range of methods to reduce the amount of international travel required. We are also committed to ensuring value for money in the way university funds are spent." A number of the expenses filed were in relation to trips to Kazakhstan where the university is opening a campus in September. You can read more about that here.

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