Water chiefs not taking their mini bonuses? Hurrah for small mercies

theguardian.com:

C ontain your excitement at news that bosses of a few water companies won’t be taking their bonuses this year. In all three cases – South West Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water — acceptance of any bonus at all would rightly have provoked general outrage. These firms were at, or near to, the bottom of the league table in the Environment Agency’s last set of annual environmental performance ratings.

At the most sludgy end, South West joined Southern in scoring the lowest possible one star out of four, which the chair of the EA – a body that itself has hardly excelled during three decades of under-regulation – translated into plain English. It meant the companies’ environmental performance “was terrible across the board”. Thames and Yorkshire were two of four companies getting two stars, which indicated a need for “significant improvement”, so still deeply in cruddy territory.

It is conceivable, of course, that the trio have upped their game and undergone a transformation since the EA published its ratings for 2021 last July. But, even if they have (don’t hold your breath until this July), the timing doesn’t work bonus-wise for the 2022-23 financial year. Improvement has to be seen to have happened – and then to be achieved regularly to remove weather-related vagaries.

Given the star ratings, many may wonder if Sarah Bentley at Thames, Susan Davy at Pennon (owner of South West) and Nicola Shaw at Yorkshire are volunteering to forego bonuses they wouldn’t have received anyway. The answer – strange as it sounds – is that, actually, they are probably surrendering a few hundred thousand pounds or so each.

In common with the set-up across the entire UK quoted-company scene, the formula for awarding bonuses tends to include so