Interim Report “More For Less” Launched:
Today, the High Pay Commission has released its interim report entitled More For Less: what has happened to pay at the top and does it matter? The report is an extensive audit of the current debate on top pay. It reveals the dramatic growth in pay experienced by those at the top of the income distribution over the last 30 years and discusses the causes of this growth.
A new ICM poll, also released today, shows that 72% of the public think high pay makes Britain grossly unequal whilst 73% have no faith in government or business to tackle excessive high pay. The poll shows that, from a range of options, the majority of the public (57%) wants top pay linked clearly to company performance, while half (50%) want shareholders to have a direct say on senior pay and bonus packages.
Chair of the High Pay Commission, Deborah Hargreaves, said today:
“This is the clearest evidence so far that the gap between pay of the general public and the corporate elite is widening rapidly and is out of control. Set against the tough spending measures and mixed company performance, we have to ask ourselves whether we are paying more and getting less.”
Robert Talbut, Commissioner, and Chief Investment Officer of Royal London Asset Management said:
“As the polling shows there is a clear public interest in tackling top pay, and increasingly there is a clear business interest too. In part because companies depend on public support but also because the evermore complicated pay packages designed to incentivise performance for top executives – that have contributed to a ballooning in pay at the top – do not appear to have worked. The clear and necessary link between executive pay and company performance appear tenuous at best.
Ahead of its final report, due in the autumn, the High Pay Commission wants to see a fair framework for fair pay that sees government and business tackling rapidly spiralling top pay through:
·        Reforms on transparency
·        Greater accountability
·        Developing a fair framework for fair pay.
The High Pay Commission will now be commissioning additional research on the issue of high pay and developing policy proposals that could seek to mitigate or reduce this dramatic trend. The High Pay Commission will report finally in November 2011.
May 16th, 2011 at 10:19 am
What happened to Will Hutton’s report? Did that get taken up, discussed or simply discarded? Given that we live in a neo-liberal economy with no national boundaries what value is there in developing a UK specific solution? Nation specific fiscal policies that are not harmonised across the G8 or better still the G20 seem delusional.
May 16th, 2011 at 10:44 am
I have been advocating this for many years, which needs urgently addressing.
It’s the Private sector that creats the wealth and the Public sector that abuses it.
These people are taking home salary’s in telephone numbers for five days of pushing pens/computors, and personally I wouldn’t pay most of them in buttons and it’s got to be stopped, and the demise of the Legal Aid system should also be dealt with for the most vulnerable people in our society, before they scrap that altogether.
May 16th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Shareholders by law must have the final say on boardroom pay. This must be a law applied worldwide. Top level salaries are getting out of control. Shareholders could threaten to sell their shareholding if boardroom pay is not controlled. The small shareholders must have as much say as the bigger investors.
October 20th, 2011 at 7:00 am
commission commando…
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