Cambridge Living Wage Campaign have voiced doubts over the validity of a University statement claiming that 21 colleges are paying at least £9 an hour.

The student-led campaign released a Facebook post on Sunday evening questioning whether this statistic accounts for the wages of temporary and subcontracted staff, and called for the 21 colleges mentioned to seek official Living Wage Foundation accreditation.

The comments, which were made by a university spokesman in a recent Guardian article about inequality in Cambridge, refer to a survey conducted by the University in November 2019.

However, the Living Wage Campaign claim that their own research from Freedom of Information requests, dated July 2019, reveals that “only eight colleges were eligible for Living Wage accreditation”.

The post claims that “It is unlikely that in such a short period of time all 21 colleges have now included casual and agency staff in their self-defined policy”, as their survey found that only two have official accreditation with the Living Wage Foundation.

The campaign told Varsity that, “The content of the survey quoted by the University is both deliberately vague and problematic in attempting to portray college’s as operating a fair living wage policy.”

Further details of this were given to by the Living Wage Campaign, who told Varsity that, “We do not know the exact contents of the survey that colleges filled out, but the statement given to the Observer claims that 25 colleges are operating on a ‘living wage policy.’”

“We sent out a Freedom of Information Act request to every college in July 2019, and only eight reported paying the living wage to casual and permanent staff with a few noting an upcoming increase.”

“In light of this, we have some doubts that the ‘living wage policy’ that colleges were surveyed on is in line with the Living Wage Foundation’s qualifications for accreditation detailed above- thus they are not paying the living wage.”

In a statement to Varsity, a University spokesperson said: “The Colleges are separate legal entities to the University and control their own finances. All institutions in the collegiate University, however, seek to engage collectively in reviewing and delivering fair employment to their staff,” and maintained that 21 colleges “were aligned to at least the Real Living Wage, valued at £9 an hour at the time of reporting.”

The Real Living Wage is currently set at £9.30, having risen from £9 in November 2019.