A former water company boss has been handed a £270k bonus despite a parasite outbreak that sickened more than 140 people and caused a public health scandal.
Susan Davy stepped down as chief executive of Pennon, the group that owns South West Water, last year. She received the six-figure sum despite the board initially deciding to withhold the bonus following a public outcry.
South West Water pumped drinking water to thousands of homes in Devon containing cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes a highly infectious gastrointestinal illness.
The outbreak in May 2024 impa…
Where are any of them doing a “perfect job”? It would be good for you to present some factual evidence - bearing in mind it’s a lack if facts you berate in others who are rightly outraged by CEOs’ salaries.
The base pay of the CEOs of the 25 water companies range from lowest Ruth Jefferson (Wessex) on £440k to highest Liv Garfield (Severn) on £3.3 million. From what I can see there’s no relationship between pay and the size or operational situation of the company. So those “low base pay” you claim are nothing of the sort. Many now have their bonuses rightly paused. Here’s your outrage WITH factual basis.
I didn’t claim that they were doing a perfect job. My criticism is on the phrasing of the headline and how CEO pay consists of a base pay and bonus with the bonus being large.
This means even a middling performance would expect a bonus payment.
This is independent of the amount of basepay. I didn’t claim they were poor or underpaid. I only claimed that their wage structure enables polarizing headlines independent of facts.
You said:
In this case it’s untrue. Not sure what your salary’s like but for 99% of the country, £440k is not a “low base pay”. By quibbling about the headline you try to distract from the grotesque nature of the way the water companies function.
I SAID RATIO. I never said their base pay wasn’t a living wage. You even quote me correctly and still interpret it your way.
Nothing to do with interpretation. Their base pay isn’t low (even as a ratio). You’ve not offered any evidence about the wage to bonus ratio (lack of evidence being your original gripe) You’re either willfully ideologically ignorant or disingenuous. I would guess from seeing other posts that it’s the latter.
10% of your wage being base pay is absolutely a low percentage. Example: https://www.ipcconsultants.com/blog/global-ceo-compensation-trends
Can you explain how that works for the least paid water CEO who earns £440k + bonus? Or the highest paid who receives £3.3 million + bonus?
I think I understand that you’re making some sort of abstract, generalised point about CEO pay - but can you explain how that applies here to the pay of water fat cats?
This applies here due to the phrasing of the headline - the headline implies that the CEO got rewarded for doing a bad job based on being paid a “big” bonus. But their pay structure is structured in a way where this is a usual and expected part of their pay.
This isn’t really about what water company CEOs are paid but journalists using CEO pay structure for an outrage inducing headline.