Nick Robinson grills Ofwat CEO over bonus payouts to water company executives | The Today Programme 

You are not protecting the customer, really what a load of rubbish all these useless watchdogs need disbanding

Water utilities should all be nationalised as a matter of priority.

This git from Ofwat should be sacked immediately

Why are you only now introducing these rules around executive pay? What have you been doing for the last 15 years? Completely in the pocket of big business - corporate capture at its finest.

Toothless regulator trying to hide its empty gums, a waste of time and money if they cannot or will not make the water companys do what they are over paid to do.

Why are the English still ok with this? We in Scotland pay for our water in our council tax and we don't have meters. Absolutely mad. You're actually paying for the water from the tap. Why aren't you rioting?

OFWAT …. Clearly missing a letter

Pay it back Thatcher is to blame

PRIVATISATION A FAILED POLOTICAL DOGMA.ROYAL MAIL NEXT😮

Jail the CEOs of the water companies

Close down OFWAT. They are utterly useless.

The British Public have ALREADY PAID ONCE, why should we be forced to PAY AGAIN?

imagine getting a huge bonus for absolutely failing....

Disgusting!

Its so laughable and would be criminal if it wasn't true. What I wonder did the executives spend their money on? This country is all about giving money to the aready well off but leave those who pay enormous water bills to fend for themselves. The executives should be made to return their bonus's in return for us not tipping their effluent all over their well manicured estates.

England's water companies are in a complete mess (of their own making due to greed and lax regulation). Labour are going to regulate properly, hopefully the companies will either run themselves properly or go bust. Either way the UK government must NOT take on their debts. Their execs/shareholders/lenders should bear this risk/cost, NOT the taxpayer. This of course means no immediate privatisation. We CANNOT have another 2008....

Ofwat is useless, It needs to be gone, or the rules of how it does things completely rewritten, so it actually has teeth and doesn't lick the arses of the water companies!

How can you pay out a bonus or a dividend to anybody if you are millions in debt

Ofwat are the worst

Margaret Hilda Thatcher has a lot to answer for

The companies that used to be on your side (bank, insurance, utilities etc.) have made themselves the enemy.

So Thames Water's investors can pay the CEO's £200k QUARTERLY bonus. And Thames can pay them back by paying a dividend. And the head of OFWAT hasn't worked that out yet?

Why not fire Ofwat and replace it with a proper regulator.

The CEO came across as weak, very weak

Ofwat are in the pocket of the water company’s it’s that simple.

Scottish Water. #,IndependenceisNormal 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Theft

the dude is eve smirking, thinking he is so clever and we don't understand he is trying to trick us

Ofwat is missing a t

watch him become a board member of a water company in a few years time.

He should have asked where the income comes from to pay bonuses? I fully agree if you pollute rivers and beaches you shouldn’t get a bonus and shareholders shouldn’t receive dividends. If customers had a real choice all of these companies would have gone bankrupt years ago. If water companies want to increase their prices they should reduce bonuses and dividends as well so that everyone receives equal pain.

The UK needs to start hiring good people in important roles instead of drips like this

Utter f up dear lord ...

The revolving door of Ofwat Managers leaving to join water companies can't help - if that was stopped perhaps they'd be more inclined to do a better job of holding water companies to account

Bonuses should not be paid to executives of companies that people have no choice but to pay. These companies should all be renationalised, all bonuses and shares paid out since privatisation should be recovered and ploughed back into infrastructure and prosecutions should follow.

They should be called Ofwhatdowedoallday. This guy is as much use as a chocolate teapot!

I'm a Brit living in Austria. What annoys me I have family and friends on the island (including grandchildren) who these have screwed the rivers and sea in and around my homeland putting them in danger from ALLOWING pollution. Plus ALL who are involved in ANY way in the water industry have children and/or grandchildren and if they don't care about the HEALTH of their own family.... THEY SURE AREN'T GOING TO WORRY ABOUT YOURS.

So Bills -> Profits -> dividends to shareholders -> bonuses for executives. It's still the customer paying!

Chris Weston was at British Gas Services about 10 years ago. I can only remember him telling us the situation where when he was in then army, a squaddie slept under a tank to keep out of the rain in a desert. The sand shifted and the guy was slowly crushed to death and his every death throw could be heard. He wasn’t at BGS very long but he moved on to another company and then picked up more unjustified bonuses. It looks like there is a merry go round of money amongst businesses who give and get huge bonuses without actually making any difference to the profits or viability of these companies. He has been in his current roll 3 months and is getting £175K in his back pocket. For instance in Germany you must be with a company for 3 years before any bonus can be paid, this whole merry go round of money tree for directors of companies in the U.K. needs to be investigated, now. The other thing that happened in BGS was that these bonuses were pumped into company pension schemes to avoid paying tax on them. These people are carried on the backs of the workers at the coal face then they, not the actual workers making the profits get lottery win bonuses, it has to stop, now…….

No utility company should have shareholders or be paying bonuses. Salaried managers only. Better still, nationalise the lot of them. As for protecting the customers, how he can say that with a straight face is incredible.

You have the tories to thank for this. Public ownership comes with problems which need dealing with, but private ownership simply doesn’t work.

Disgaceful

It’s utterly disgusting these bonuses should be with immediate effect recovered and as regards to the persons who got this money P45d

The Post Office horizon Inquiry has shown us that the layer upon layer of management or bureaucracy does nothing but add incompetence and unfairness to any institution or business. Time to hold all senior management in essential services to account for their performance and the public decide that level not a government minister or a pay review body.

The water companies when first privatised had no incumbent debt. In the intervening years the water companies have taken on huge debt, far beyond what they have paid in infrastructure investment to pay enormous shareholder dividends, and now when they can't pay the interest on that debt, they want customers to pay it, with no increase in service provision. The simple answer is that Ofwat should not allow any shareholder dividend payments until the capital debt has been repaid in full.

So the shareholders have to pay the bonuses, so they then invest less in the water company and the tax payer has to pay more to fix the broken water system. Errrm, does that not mean we pay in the end….did I miss something? The smirk on his face says it all. And that’s the regulator!

So you have a regulatory authority who are supposed to ensure water companies do the right thing, but they don't have the power to do that, who gives them the power? The government, maybe some of the Tory MPs family and friends have shares in these companies, so why would you impose regulations on a company that could affect the amount of dividends you receive

How about only pay bonuses when river and sea discharges reduce DRASTICALLY?

We need lay people on the boards of all public regulators in order to stop this clear misuse of OUR money.

CRIMINAL! When will these thieves be called to account? Ofwat needs to be scrapped and a new regulator with teeth, put in it's place. Ofwat also needs to be investigated for their complete incompetence. Why is it that the law never applies to those in positions of power and we wonder why lawlessness and respect for the law is at an all time low!

These people get called maggots and such, but maggots are actually quite noble in comparison.

As we know the cost of living crisis is down to one thing and one thing alone, corporate greed, they all looked at the situation and are still taking advantage, absolutely disgusting they are allowed to mug us off.

Price hikes, and no guarantee of any remedial work been done. Can you hear the shareholders laughing?

This man one of them who sharing money with big companies and bankers 😡😡😡😡😡

This regulator needs scrapping and a total refresh. Totally useless.

AI is getting so sophisticated these days. This guy is an absolute robot

I worked for AW for fifteen years and in that time Ofwat was always run by an ex water company man and was always in the pocket of the. Water companies.

All water companies are FOREIGN owned,............their profits go abroad to offset costs THAT ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES................where those governments impose strict rules on ANY higher prices for ANY utility company. SO, once again, poor old UK customers ARE BEING FORCED TO MAKE UP THE LOST PROFITS OF THE FOREIGNERS..............whilst the same foreign owned companies can & do flood this country with their FILTHY CONTAMINATED WATER, which we have to pay for...... Can only happen in the UK.....

If he plays his cards right he can end up as the CEO of one of the water companies and earn a huge bonus that is not paid for by the customers.

GREED KNOWS NO BOUNDS. What have we done??????????????????????????????????????????

Thatcher privatised so much. How did it end up? Rail, Utilities, Steel, BT... Great success or what?

Part of a new water pipeline that links areas in the east midlands has tapped into our local artesian water supply that served just our local area. It goes across local fields and the installation of a 12" diameter pipe has smashed field drains which now have to be repaired before the winter to prevent catastrophic flooding. Our affected farmer has had to cut down large areas of standing crop in order for this to go ahead. Bonuses paid for this?

Good to see the BBC asking the awkward questions.

Breathtaking complacency from OFWAT CEO, “our focus is on protecting customers interests” and yet, sewage pouring into waterways and into the sea is not in customers interests?

Name one privatised industry that has been a success for both its customers and it's workers?

The Ofwat CEO, David Black looks distinctly uncomfortable at the line of questioning being pursued by Nick Robinson. I wonder whether he suspects that the days of a revolving door between jobs in Ofwat and subsequent lucrative jobs in the water companies are over?

Water company's are doing great....they take are money, chuck it all in the River and ocean...and go down the pub....

Are Ofwat and Environment Agency staff ex-water company employees? A hideous roundabout?

Get all our utilities back in public hands. End of……

That guy really is waffling big time.

Ofwat are in the water companies pockets... pure and simple

Ummmmmmmmmm, does offwat ceo work for Thames water🤨 …….. NO teeth and will probably disappear into the mists of time

Sack the water bosses and OFWAT.

OFWAT is pathetic the owners have been allowed to pay out so much in Dividends and the companies are geared to the roof now and they have done bugger all to stop it.

England should take the water industry into public ownership like they did in Scotland.

lol bs thats what customers there for to pay directors bonus's lol

What is this Ofwat CEOs salary and bonus scheme? Because whatever it is, that also seems to be a cost to the tax-payer with no benefits associated.

Thames Water is an equity investment company scam. It is equally criminal that Ofwat have enable this. All the water companies need to be nationalised (without compensation) and money will then be saved by scrapping Ofwat, as well.

So if customers don't pay the bonus where does the money come from? Do they have another money tree we don't know about.

As Mrs Sloacombe would say “Weak as water”…. OFFWAT should all be removed!!

Water should be free. Same with food. Surely both are a basic Human right!

He was talkingtotal bollocks.

Water is a MUST for everyone it should never be for profit and should be run by the national

Stop executive bonuses completely. The bonus culture corrupts - look at the Post Office. Most workers do NOT get bonuses for doing their jobs.

These people think we are fools.

If the Bonuses are not paid, from customers monies, where does it come from ?

Privatisation has not worked for the water industry. How can people be rewarded for failure ? Why are bills rising when the services are diminishing ? What has the bill payers money been used for ? Why only now do they speak of investment in the water infrastructure? Shocking abuse of a monopoly business position. After all, its the only business that gets its raw material for FREE !!

Regulators do absolutely nothing until they are called out. Never on the front foot

Nothing this man says is convincing. Why ARE bonuses being paid? Why was the money offered BEFORE the CEO fulfilled his commitments? This is beyond scandalous. I hope there is nationwide uproar if Thames water passes on their failure to their customers.

Sorry guys but how many people were convinced by Maggie the milk snatcher,that privatisation was a brilliant idea. Name me one industry it's worked in . That would be fat round ZERO.👿👿👿👿👿

This guy needs sacking. He is in cahoots with the water bosses and not protecting the consumers interests.

Be interesting to find out where this bonus money comes from if not from customers. What other source of income do they have?

It’s time the massive water companies start to pay the CRT and inland water ways who look after our waterways as the take from our water systems

I sometimes wonder if the water company directors ok the Ofwat directors bonuses, and vice versa.

If everyone simply withheld their water payment (I mean EVERYONE) something would change. The same goes with fuel at the forecourt. Over inflated house prices/rents etc. We have it in our hands to change Thatchers greed.

This is just despicable these company's should be left to sort themselves out and not turn back on there customers all the time

If this is the man in charge it's no wonder they are so ineffective.

Get rid of Ofwat, waste of space

He's the regulator and he doesn't care that sewage is being pumped into rivers? How does that work?

The fundamental structure of the system, as well as the commercial short term objectives and venal personal actions, are as rotten as a pear.