Water Company Bosses Blocked From £4m in Bonuses

Water company bosses were blocked from receiving £4m in bonuses for the last financial year – adn the industry regulator is considering forcing companies to report pay received from parent companies after a Guardian investigation.

Ofwat, the regulator for English and Welsh water firms, said six companies had complied with the new rules governing the sector and did not pay out bonuses to bosses. However, it is consulting on further rules to force the disclosure of payments by other companies after the revelation that Yorkshire Water‘s chief executive, Nicola Shaw, had received £1.3m in secret payments via an offshore parent company.

The government in June banned bonuses for water companies that failed to protect the environment from the worst pollution incidents, after widespread public outrage over the extent of sewage in Britain’s rivers and seas.

The six companies whose bonuses were banned this year were Anglian Water, Southern Water, Thames Water, United Utilities, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water, all of which did not give their directors an annual bonus and other relevant performance-related pay, according to Ofwat’s definitions.

Despite the ban and the significant scrutiny on the sector,Guardian analysis found that the pay of water company chief executives in England and Wales rose by 5% in the last financial year to an average of £1.1m – although the pay awarded to the bosses of the six companies did fall.

There were outliers even among the six: the £1.3m given to Shaw was only disclosed after the Guardian raised questions about the lack of openness.

Ofwat said that the Yorkshire Water payments, made via an offshore company, had prompted it to make changes to the rules on pay reporting.