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…
So you would say let’s just not pay CEOs of failing water companies much until those companies improve? It’s not like the “music is stopping” specifically now - all these companies are in bad situations with many problems going back years. This sounds like a recipe for, as soon as a company develops serious problems, running that company hard into the ground as they can’t find anyone competent to manage it.
If this were about executive pay in general then sure, let’s cap it compared to worker pay. But there is nothing special about the scenario of a company doing badly: if you specifically reduce executive pay for those companies, executives won’t work for them. Who knows, maybe worker committees will work this time.
There’s no evidence that paying CEOs huge sums means you get better leaders. Independent analysts have said for a number of years that the pay of CEOs has fallen out of alignment with the market. There have been recent reports of CEOs receiving bonuses of millions even though the performance of their company has declined under their tenure.
Evidence for what? I don’t think you understand what I’m saying because you seem to be talking about something I already agreed with and asking me for evidence.