Capitalism -Good for a very few - Bad for the many

THE average pay for directors of the UK's biggest firms has soared to £2.87 million after seeing their salary packages rise by over a third in the last year, as reported in the Edinburgh Evening News .

The 37 % rise outstrips average inflation of 2.3 % and is 11 times the increase in average employee pay of 4 % .

The total pay packages of the 1389 FTSE 100 company directors last year broke through the £1 billion barrier for the first time, totalling £1.01billion - enough for 15 hospitals or 50,000 nurses.

The top-paid UK executive was Bob Diamond, head of the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank, who earned £23 million. Although his basic salary was only £250,000, Mr Diamond was awarded a performance bonus of more than £10 million and over £12 million in share awards.

Bart Becht, chief executive of household cleaning company Reckitt Benckiser, was not far behind with a total package worth £22 million , nearly 80 per cent of the firm's total executive wage bill.

Among the other biggest earners were Giles Thorley, who heads the Punch Taverns pub group, which owns one in eight of all pubs in the UK and has more than 160 pubs in and around the Lothians. He took home a salary package of £11 million .

The highest paid woman, with a package worth £2.1million , was Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Financial Times publisher Pearson

Jann Brown, finance director at Edinburgh-based oil and gas explorer Cairn Energy, was the UK's third highest earning female executive, with a total salary package of £1.7 million.

Two Royal Bank of Scotland heavyweights also made the top ten in terms of the biggest cash bonuses paid out, with chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin bagging £2.8million and Johnny Cameron, chief executive of the RBS global banking and markets division, raking in £2.3 million.

Meanwhile the paper also reports :-

THE number of people declared bankrupt in Edinburgh has soared to almost ten a week, as rising interest rates start to bite. The number of people declared bankrupt in the Capital has nearly doubled in two years. Most cases involved people struggling with credit card or loan debts .

Debt management experts today warned the problem will worsen as homeowners come to the end of fixed-rate mortgages and house prices stabilise. Lenders are also being blamed for "exercising their muscle" by forcing people into court to be declared bankrupt, rather than letting them pursue voluntary insolvency.