Students in York and Ripon today escaped the effects of a national day of action being waged by university unions against the latest pay offer from vice-chancellors.

As many as 100,000 academics and support staff were taking part in a national day of action to protest against the offer.

Lecturers from the lecturers' union NATFHE decided to withhold student marks and boycott exam boards and one Unison official called the action a "classic work-to-rule".

There were also campus demonstrations.

But a spokesman for the College of Ripon and York St John said their staff and unions had not advised them of any action today.

He said members of NATFHE had been balloted on whether to take action on the latest three per cent pay offer, but neither they or Unison had announced any action today. A spokesman for the University of York was not available.

The unions are particularly angry that vice-chancellors have not agreed to reopen negotiations, even though a third of the £1 billion recently given to higher education by the Government was earmarked for pay.

Peter Humphreys, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, said that money would not be available until August 2001.

"There is no more money than we have already offered for this year's pay round," he insisted.

But Chris Kaufman, national secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, said: "They managed to find increases for vice-chancellors of nearly eight per cent, making their average pay £115,000 a year, whereas they could only find an extra 16p per hour for the cleaners and support staff."