not watered down

Five bosses at publicly owned Scottish Water have shared in a one-off bonus pay-out of more than £450,000. Chief executive Richard Ackroyd was handed £78,900 as part of the deal, meaning he took home £420,000 in total last year. Finance chief Douglas Millican and asset management director Geoff Aitkenhead both got bonuses of £103,000 to top up their total pay of £230,000. Commercial director Chris Banks was paid £95,481 as part of the scheme, on top of his £217,000 salary, while customer service delivery director Peter Farrer, who was paid £211,000, got a bonus of £72,744.

"It's simply obscene for five directors of a public company to trouser half a million pounds between them in bonuses on top of an existing pay packet that's already two and a half times that. Public services are being closed down while workers face pay freezes and compulsory redundancies, yet this gilded elite make more in a month than most people make in a year." Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie said.