# Academic staff want early translation of pay award {#article-title-2} Professor Michael Rees told the Medical Academic Staff Committee last week that he believed most clinical academic staff were unaware of the problems over their pay award. There is usually a delay in the pay award recommended by the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body being translated to academic staff, but Professor Rees, professor of clinical radiology at the University of Bristol, said that this year it was not just a question of the pay increases being delayed but of not being paid at all because universities were under such financial pressure. He urged the BMA to pursue the issue “with the utmost vigour.” The Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals has set up two working parties with the Department for Education and Employment—one on cuts and the other on capital budgets—and no decisions will be made on pay until these report at the end of May. The BMA is committed to the concept of parity between NHS and clinical academic salaries and believes that the translation should be automatic regardless of other factors. The BMA has called for a meeting of the Clinical Academic Staff Salaries Committee to press for the pay to be settled and the chairman of the MASC, Dr Colin Smith, has urged the government through the education secretary to institute a moratorium on recurrent expenditure. # BMA will give evidence to inquiry into clinical academic careers {#article-title-3} The delay in translating the NHS pay award to clinical academic staff is one of the disincentives to a career in academic medicine and will be emphasised by the …