Remuneration committees are claimed to be independent, authoritative and knowledgeable – but they aren't
When CEO Bob Diamond was paid £17m just before leaving Barclays, we considered this to be an obscene amount and stopped banking there after 40 years. We moved our money to the Co-op, attracted primarily by its ethical stance and traditional, speculator-free banking. We continued our support throughout the Paul Flowers debacle and welcomed the pledges made by the new management team and embodied in the "charter".
Now our personal banking history appears to be repeating itself ("New Co-op storm as board awards bosses huge pay and bonus deals", News), a view further reinforced by the subsequent resignation this week of Euan Sutherland as CEO of the Co-op Group.
Once again, the usual paltry rationales and justifications for excessive and ludicrous remuneration packages have been trotted out: consistent with salaries in comparable organisations, extraordinary challenges to be faced, past experience and track records of the managers, the going rate for global talent etc.
How very disappointing. Where next for our bank account?
Mick and Viv Beeby
Westbury-on-Trym
Bristol
Outrageous pay seems always justified by reference to remuneration committees as though they are somehow independent, authoritative and knowledgeable. In fact, they consist of a cabal of directors sitting on each other's committees recommending ridiculously high salaries for each other. They are neither transparent nor accountable and need to be strictly regulated.
Trade unions, which support and protect the rights of working people, are rigidly regulated, while those people running big businesses are allowed to drive companies into the ground for their own aggrandisement. The real threats to the economy are left to regulate themselves and, of course, don't.
C Terry
London SW18
So the Co-op is no longer a sound bank based on sustainable growth, specialising in ethical investments and sharing its profits equitably between its members but a failing cash cow whose parasitic executive management are draining it of its dwindling financial lifeblood to line their own pockets.
Our only hope is for John Lewis to open a bank so we can all flock to it, and to shop at Waitrose, where hopefully they would have bought up all the farms being sold off by the Co-op. Oh, and maybe all the bankers could go to live together somewhere unreal that mirrors their self-worth – such as Dubai.
Pat McKenna
Cardiff
The reason that the Co-op Group is rewarding its board of directors so handsomely is the same reason that Barclays, Lloyds et al are paying their directors large bonuses with seemingly no heed to the profitability of their companies. It is just because they can.
Apart from some vague remonstration, about fairness, which they have decided to ignore, there is no reason why they should curb their excesses and they are not going to do so.
Charles Cronin
London SW11
Anyone who believes they need the kind of grossly enlarged pay given to senior executives is either completely incompetent in managing their own affairs or just greedy. Either way, they are clearly not people who should be entrusted with responsibility.
Co-op members should show the way by bringing pay for their executives down to reasonable levels. Perhaps a generous figure of £100,000 would be appropriate – far more than many people get in much more responsible jobs.
Kevin McGrath
Harlow
Essex
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