Salary and pensions
I wanted to respond to the Parry's Pension post from 8th May which contains statements that are inaccurate and need to be clarified, writes Vince Moran.
The Trustees of CRT issued a press release on 24th July 2012 which made clear that from that date the salary of Mr Evans was £195,000 pa and the salary of Mr Ridal was £160,000 pa. Accordingly Richard Parry will be the highest paid Executive Director, when he is appointed, on an annual salary of £175,000.
To clarify Philip Ridal's salary, the figure of £183,063 quoted in the 2011/12 Annual Report comprises a basic salary of £174,000 and a cash car allowance of £9,063, because Mr Ridal does not have a company car. Mr Ridal's salary was reduced to £160,000 plus the car allowance, with effect from July 2012.
No abuse
There is no abuse of the Waterways Pension Fund as you have alleged. Each executive director has pension benefit entitlements under their service contracts and under the rules of the Waterways Pension Fund. The transfer values quoted in the 2011/12 remuneration report are calculated by the pension scheme actuary and are the amounts that were available from the scheme to transfer the accrued pension benefits to another provider.
The Directors do not receive these amounts and it is wrong for you to count them as part of the total salary or to allege that the Directors are paid these amounts. The pension benefits accrued under the scheme are defined as an amount of annual pension due for payment at normal retirement date and the annual change in those amounts is disclosed in the 2011/12 remuneration report.
One scheme
I should make clear that there is no such thing as a ‘high earners' pension scheme. There is one Waterways Pension Scheme which, from 1st April 2011, was closed to new entrants. It was replaced by a new defined contribution scheme (the Canal and River Trust Flexible Retirement Plan) which is available to all CRT staff who joined after 1st April 2011. Richard Parry will be entitled to join this scheme in accordance with the rules of that scheme.
Paying the right people the right amount of money is something that is in all of our interests. As ever we are only too happy to help explain what can be a complicated topic.
On a lighter note your readers may be interested to know that Richard Parry will, before he joins the Trust, be hiring a boat for a weekend and will also help to work a boat up the Wolverhampton 21 giving him the chance to see some of the waterways for himself.
[We are most sorry for the delay in publishing, but this arrived whilst the site was closed, and only today 'came to the top'.]