The battle to tackle excess boardroom pay may already be won

At a low moment in late March, I suggested that all large companies should consider temporary cuts in executive salaries ‘both as a gesture of immediate solidarity and as a move to avert a longer-term backlash against wealth, privilege and the pillars of capitalism’. Latest research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the High Pay Centre reveals that 36 of the FTSE 100 list of top companies followed my advice, most commonly with a 20 per cent salary cut for the chief executive but no reduction to the long-term incentive schemes that make up half of total boardroom pay.

The High Pay Centre, which hates high pay, clearly doesn’t think that’s enough of a sacrifice. But what’s interesting is that the battle to quell blatant excess in executive rewards, a subject on which I’ve been holding forth in these pages since 1993, may already have been won.