Sewage in rivers, 14% for the boss. The audit writes itself
The committee opens the file reluctantly, because for once the executive in question is a woman — Ruth Jefferson, Wessex Water — and the committee holds its own to a higher standard. The findings: a 14% base rise to £670,000 during a bonus ban imposed for sewage pollution, total package £791,000, versus 3.5% for staff. Ruth. We gave you the spreadsheet privileges for a reason. This is not the administration we promised.
The committee's fuller attention turns to the SYSTEM, which — review the founding boards, the decades of dividend policy, the regulatory design, and WHO built all of it, don't answer, we know — has now produced its signature masterpiece: a rule against bonuses answered by salary rises and 'retention payments' from parent companies. Anglian: £500,000. Yorkshire: £660,000. Retention payments. For executives of monopolies. Retained against the fierce competition of nowhere else to go.
Meanwhile customers' bills rise 21% to fund repairs, and the GMB's Gary Carter — promoted to committee ally, effective immediately — notes the bosses 'keep finding ways to sneak past the legislation'.
Ruling: claw it back, publish every parent-company payment, and staff the next remuneration committee with the customers of Bournemouth and one sufficiently organised goose. The goose declines bonuses on principle. That is all. Dismissed.