Thursday, March 13, 2025
Welsh Water redefine performance rewards
Perry was being questioned at UK Parliament's environment committee by Mid and South Pembrokeshire MP Henry Tufnell:
Mr Tufnell said: "In 2021, Peter, your total remuneration was £892,000 and last year you took a bonus of £91,000. I wonder whether, if you take into consideration what we've talked about with water security, environmental performance, water quality with the public health element to it, do you think level of pay is justified and that's in alignment with your not-for-profit model?"
Mr Perry replied: "We don't have the term 'bonus' – we have the term 'variable pay' and variable pay puts at risk a potential earnings based on performance." He said in 2021 there was a four-star environmental performance for Dwr Cymru but the year where he took a £91,000 bonus it was only 25% of what he could have had earned because "100% of our variable pay is entirely based on performance". He said he believed the system was "reflective of performance".
"I personally have no influence over my pay – that's decided by an independent committee of the board – and the one thing I would say is it's significant. I can't say anything else about that but it is very much linked to performance and if we don't perform then we don't reach our earnings potential," he said.
Like other water companies, Welsh Water has an appalling record on polluting our waterways. As the website points out, in November 2024, it emerged Dwr Cymru pumped 56,000 cubic metres of untreated wastewater into the Western Cleddau at Picton in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, between July 2022 and February 2024 – the equivalent of 17 tanker loads a day – when they didn’t actually need to. That is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
As for the total remuneration received by Mr Perry in 2021, that's almost exactly £1 per hour for every hour of sewage Welsh Water dumped into the environment that year, 889,608 hours worth.
