New survey: CEOs get more inflation busting pay hikes
CEO pay up 3.2% in England
UK housing association chief executives took an inflation beating average increase to their pay of 3.1% in 2014/15 while the two highest-paid chief executives in the sector both saw pay increases of more than 10% according to a report published today by Social Housing magazine. In England, the average pay increase for chief executives of the 166 associations analysed was 3.2%.
CEOs in big associations get 5.5%
The report is broadly consistent with the results of the annual CEO pay survey from Inside Housing that we have regularly reported. Covering the biggest associations, the most recent Inside Housing survey shows a whopping 5.5% increase for CEOs.
David Cowans of ‘Places for People’ remains the highest paid Housing Association boss on £483,000.
Record surplus
Over recent years the sector has been growing rapidly and become more profitable consistently booked record surpluses year after year. Last year the combined surpluses of the biggest 75 associations reached £2.2bn. Savills have observed: “An increase in operating margin of more than 1% is actually quite impressive. A lot of the big PLCs would be pretty happy if they were achieving that.” Not a picture of a sector in desperate crisis and needing to make its workers take the pain chief executives and senior executives have ensured that they have benefited handsomely while the pay and conditions of their staff have been squeezed.
Social Housing note that the pay rise is ahead of the growth in numbers of homes managed, at 1.4%, but behind increase in turnover, which was 8.2%. Payments to departing executives and directors jumped 71% to £4.4m over the last year.
The highest paid CEO in the sector remained Places for People’s David Cowans, whose emoluments rose to £483,000 in the year.
All worth remembering when you think about a pay claim
Paul Kershaw