THERE were no punches pulled at Holyrood’s public audit committee meeting yesterday.

MSPs were united in their condemnation of the 17 per cent pay rise awarded to Robin Ashton, the executive director of the Glasgow Colleges Regional Board (GCRB).

After the meeting, committee chairwoman Jackie Baillie penned a letter to John Swinney, the Education Secretary, calling on him to issue a clear statement that “excessive pay demands” are wrong.

The letter states: “After an extended period of public pay restraint and with established pay policies in place, it would be entirely inappropriate for anyone in the college sector to be awarded a pay increase significantly higher than that received by other workers.

“This would not only be an insult to those who provide vital public services, but may also send a signal across the college sector, and beyond, that excessively high pay rises are acceptable.”

The immediate response from the GCRB was to suggest the committee was not in possession of the full facts.

What that means is officials don’t view the move from £81,000 to £95,000 as a pay rise, but rather a more accurate reflection of the scope and responsibilities of the post.

Grahame Smith, the GCRB interim chair and general secretary of the STUC, said earlier this week that the salary was £25,000 less than it could have been under an evaluation of Mr Ashton’s role and 40 per cent lower than the highest paid college principal.

“It carries huge responsibility with accountability for the allocation of around £100m annually, serving over 50,000 students,” he said.

Aside from the rather unusual spectacle of a senior trade unionist defending an executive pay rise, the response is not only unlikely to satisfy MSPs, it also hints at a misreading of the current mood.

It will not have escaped the public audit committee that in Lanarkshire, where a similar regional board has been set up to run two colleges, there is no executive director. Instead, a chair leads the region collecting £265 a day capped annually at just over £20,000.

In addition, the committee’s anger was partly because the GCRB was advised by Scottish Funding Council that it viewed the rise as difficult to justify, but went ahead anyway.

It is noteworthy that, faced with these facts, MSPs turned quickly to question the point and purpose of the regional board.