The Boardroom Bonanza - The Top Pay Just Goes Up and Up

Companies have been busy cutting costs in recent years by slashing the pension provision for employees across the board. This has seen much of the private sector workforce shut out from the best final-salary related schemes, but the boardroom has shown no such restraint. As directors pay has risen like a rocket with many of the packages becoming ever more complex. The average FTSE 100 director has accumulated a pension worth £3.6 million; a sum that can only be dreamt of by an ordinary worker. In fact the 36 top executives in the UK earned at least £500,000 last year, with 14 of them who were on over £1 million a year. There's no such thing as a poor bookie-and that certainly applies to Brian Wallace, finance director of Ladbrokes. His pay almost doubled (+93.3%) to £1.3 million as result of a £560,000 bonus - equivalent to 113% of his basic pay - being paid in 2010 against no bonus the year before. A huge hike in his bonus powered George Walker, president of the US operations of the power generation equipment group Aggreko, to £677,000 - a 57,4% rise on 2009. Rupert Soames, chief executive of the group, only managed a 46.1% rise, but he did get £1.3 million in 2010. Jez Maiden's pay and benefits package increased by almost half - 48.6%, The finance director of bus and train operator National Express moved ever nearer the £1 million a year mark with a 2010 pay packet worth £923,000. These startling new statistics revealed in this report on executive pensions for the High Pay Commission, were compiled by Incomes Data Services using latest available data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF). The report shows that only a third of private sector employees are enrolled in a pension scheme but almost all FSTE 350 companies provide a retirement scheme for their directors. As ever with pay at the top, it is one rule for the workforce as it is exhorted to put up with poor retirement pay so that companies can stay competitive, and another one for the boardroom where generosity remains totally unchecked. The largest pay and benefits package this time around went to Samir Brikho, chief executive of engineering and project management group AMEC, with £2.1 million. His annual cash bonus rose to 121% of his basic salary; in money terms up to £1.1 million against £612,000 in 2009. Overall, his pay and benefits package was 23.7% larger in 2010 than the year before. The figures in the table only include basic pay, annual cash bonus, cash value of benefits and add-on pension allowances. They exclude the long-term bonuses awarded in shares and pension contributions to a defined benefit or defined contribution scheme. Never before has Tory Chancellor George Osborne’s statement “we are all in this together” been shown to be so completely false. I now understand why the top one hundred business leaders openly supported the Tories at the last election; they were in it for themselves and my how they have been rewarded!