10 JANUARY 1969, Page 24

After the PIB

Sir: The Pia report on university pay raises an issue that is of interest to all salary earners : that is, how is their work to be assessed?

The PIB refuses to use comparability with other professions at all, because it can have an inflationary effect (this argument, from pare 37, is a non sequitur). Instead, they have used the crudest productivity criteria (lower costs per student'). This approach, if generally adopted— and many salaried groups are having their pay scrutinised at present—would spell the end of the professions as we know them. The attitude of professional workers would have to be, quan- tity regardless of quality. Is this in the national interest?

Roland Hall Department of Philosophy, University of York