Thames Water accused of “flimsy PR stunt” when it previously said she would give up bonuses and performance-related executive payouts.

Robert Lea www.thetimes.co.uk 

Thames Water has confirmed that its chief executive Sarah Bentley will receive pay and perks topping £1.6 million this year despite the company indicating last month that she will forgo her bonus during the sewage and leakage crisis.

News of the Bentley’s payout was condemned by trade unions, who said Thames had conducted a “flimsy PR stunt” when it previously said she would give up bonuses and performance-related executive payouts. She said she was giving up the cash because the company had not yet delivered on “a customer service and environmental performance” turnaround.

Thames confirmed that Bentley’s remuneration for the last year would include no performance-related bonus for 2023, but would still total about £1.6 million. It said all components of her pay during 2022-23 had been previously disclosed.

When Thames publishes its annual report and accounts early next month it will show that Bentley, 51, received £750,000 basic pay, pension payments of another £90,000 and other travel, car and medical benefits expected to be a further £32,000.

On top of that she received in the last year a payment of £548,000, the latest tranche of a “golden hello” compensation package for shares and bonuses she had to give up from her time working at Severn Trent, the Midlands water group from where she was poached by Thames three years ago.

In addition, Bentley has also received £178,000 as a bonus related to Thames Water’s “performance” during her first two years’ service. It is uncertain how much in bonuses and performance-related pay she has actually given up in the last financial year.

The £1.6 million she will receive for 2022-23 is not too far off the £2 million she received in the prior year — which included a £496,000 bonus — and is more than the £1.2 million she received in her first year’s service.

Gary Carter, a national officer at the GMB union, told The Guardian, which first reported on the payout: “The UK water industry is in a complete mess, with creaking infrastructure, a disgruntled workforce and effluent allowed to flow freely into our beautiful waterways. To see those responsible for this carnage pocket a king’s ransom is particularly galling.

“Ms Bentley’s announcement she won’t take a bonus, while at the same time trousering a huge total pay package, shows it was nothing more than a flimsy PR stunt.”

Thames insisted that it stood by its announcement last month that Bentley would “forgo any bonus or long-term incentive payments for the financial year 2022-23”.

It said that announcement had been accompanied by “notes to editors” which said: “Separately, in July 2022, Ms Bentley received the final compensation payment for shares in Severn Trent she relinquished on joining Thames Water.”

The performance payment relating to Bentley’s service for 2020-21 and 2021-22 had been disclosed, the company said, in its annual report last year in a footnote on page 104.

Thames, the UK’s largest water company, has been a magnet for criticism of the industry’s poor record on river pollution and leakage — in Thames’s case, nearly one litre in every four flowing through its mains pipes is lost.

A Thames Water spokesman said: “As announced in May, Sarah Bentley has decided to forgo any performance-related bonuses for 2023 financial year. As disclosed at the time and in last year’s annual report, she received a final compensation payment in July 2022 for shares in Severn Trent she relinquished on joining Thames Water.

“The decision to forgo a performance-related payment was a personal one. Ms Bentley felt it would not have been right to take a performance-related bonus given the significant headwinds the company faced last year, which impacted performance.”