England’s highly paid water bosses rake it in from lucrative second jobs

theguardian.com:

Some of the highly paid bosses of England’s water companies are earning tens of thousands of pounds in second boardroom jobs, advising on the pay deals of other top executives.

Five of the chief executives of England’s nine water and sewerage companies are also working as non-executive directors in other firms, sitting on remuneration committees.

Campaigners say it is inappropriate for water bosses to be helping to fix the pay and bonuses of senior executives in other companies.

Nicola Shaw, who was appointed head of Yorkshire Water in May, is also on the board of International Airlines Group (IAG), which owns British Airways. She sits on its remuneration and safety committees, earning €123,000 (£115,000) last year.

Yorkshire Water said this weekend that Shaw’s second boardroom role did not affect her commitment to improving water services.

Susan Davy, boss of Pennon Group, owner of South West Water, which was spilling sewage and stormwater into seas around Devon and Cornwall last week, is on the board of data management firm Restore plc. She was paid £53,000 by the firm last year, sitting on a remuneration committee.

An analysis by the Liberal Democrats revealed last week that the average water company boss’s total pay rose by 20% in 2021, despite most firms failing to meet sewage pollution targets. The party said the pay packages were a “national scandal”.

Andy Prendergast, national secretary of the GMB union, which has criticised the level of pay and bonuses given to water bosses, said: “This country is facing a water crisis and the fact that those paid fortunes to deal with it have enough time to moonlight in second jobs beggars belief.

“At a time of hosepipe bans and sewage discharges, we deserve that those paid high