The Government has been criticised for giving pay rises to top academics as part of its policy to keep and recruit university staff.

Tom Green, secretary and acting chairman of the Oxford Brookes University branch of the Association of University Teachers, said the Government was not targeting its pay rises effectively if it wanted to recruit and keep college tutors.

He was commenting on Education Secretary David Blunkett's announcement that he was pumping an extra 50m into pay rises for staff in higher education to recruit and retain high-flying "top-quality academic staff."

Mr Green said the best way to keep tutors in the profession was to target those with four or five years' experience who were beginning to be disillusioned, rather than those at the top of the pay scale who were settled and unlikely to move.

He said: "This extra money is welcomed after 13 years of pay rises in line with inflation, which has led to lecturers' pay falling to 30 per cent below comparable professions.

"If choices have to be made at all about where the money is targeted, it should go to tutors with four or five years' experience who are just starting to be disillusioned with the profession and are still young enough to leave. Academics at the top of the pay scale are pretty committed."