This is a blog that is not throwing stones but asking that we up our common sense. I am sure that in olden days things could remain hidden for Royalty, those in Government and the C-Suite of top companies but those days are gone.
Social media will be used to expose bad behaviour , bad appointment making or the wrong payment structure.
I have spent the last hour hearing arguments against those who associated with Epstein, Angela Rayner who mucked up her payment of stamp duty, of those right up to our Prime Minister and our King who haven’t done enough to lock away all those who have not acted as court and jury.
Then I come to the super-sensible Dan Neidle commenting on the publication of the tax affairs of the CEO of one of Britain’s most successful companies (it doesn’t matter for this blog who he/she is – what the company is).
What matters is that CEO/Company and those associated are now going through the mill on X and why? Dan’s comments are confusing and designed to be, It really doesn’t make sense to pay someone nearly £10m in a year and turn it into a PR disaster! Shouldn’t we publicising that a successful company can turn the person who made them that successful rewarded as this chap was?
The argument against this payment is that the workers don’t get quite that much
Now we have a task for shareholders and the organisations that vote for them when issues like executive pay are votable. This is what I am interested in, not the struggle on twitter or the papers or even BBC (all of which have featured the story that Neidle brings to our intention).
I hope I don’t misrepresent Dan Neidle in repeating what I think he’s saying which is that pay isn’t to be decided on social media or by PR departments. It is to be decided by good governance and it really is time that we heard from those who said yay or nay to a £10m pay award to a man in a top company at a time when everything is going well for – well Tesco (but it could be any company in that state).
The current disclosure requirements for CEOs and other C-suite executives seem to me no longer fit for purpose.
There’s always been a tendency to disaggregate salary plus bonuses from other benefits such as pensions, travel and accommodation etc.
In a more joined up world is it not too much to ask that readers of PLC financial
statements and all the front end governance stuff that seems to go on and on and get longer year by year are given (a) the directors’ gross pay and tax deductions, alongside a taxable or untaxed benefits summary that shows what they get in addition, the pensions and the inevitable expenses for many things which most of us have to pay out of taxed earnings, sometimes with VAT on top.
And if personal service companies are in play in some cases should we not be told that as well, or a negative statement to that effect?
We read about leading politicians being asked to publish their tax returns, but really for executives (and non-executives) a headline summary of what used to go in my day on a P60, a P11D and an annual pension benefits statement could probably suffice?