Think tank urges SNP to set UK example to deal with pay inequality

According to the High Pay Centre’s research, 35 executives at some of Scotland’s biggest companies took home £55 million between them last year.

The think tank, which campaigns to reduce the income gap, believes there has been a failure within the market and among policy makers in addressing spiralling pay at the top, which has left Britain with one of the largest levels of pay inequality in Europe, and the organisation, which is hosting a fringe event at the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen this week, said the figures point out that the issue of stark pay inequality is not confined to London.

It analysed figures published in annual reports of 12 Scottish-headquartered businesses included on the FTSE 350 index of the UK’s largest listed companies and found that the senior bosses typically picked up on average 40 times as much as the average employee.

While according to the Office for National Statistics the average salary in Scotland for a full-time worker is just over £27,000, the highest paid executive north of the border, David Nish, who recently stepped down as chief executive of insurance giant Standard Life, earned almost £5.5m in last year.

Another director was paid just over £5.2m. Aberdeen Asset Management, the investment management group, paid out almost £15m which was shared between its chief executive Martin Gilbert and five other executives.

Other Scottish-based firms highlighted by the High Pay Centre included SSE, which paid out £4m shared between two executives, and Royal Bank of Scotland, which paid two executives nearly £5m between them.

High Pay Centre director Deborah Hargreaves said: “Fatcat pay is most closely associated with the City of London, but dysfunctional and disproportionate pay gaps between executives and ordinary workers are also a big problem in Scotland. Of course we need to raise living standards by growing the economy, but it’s also vital to share what we already have a little bit more fairly. The SNP’s current dominance of Scottish politics gives them an opportunity to set an example to the rest of the UK in this respect.”