FSA chairman, Adair Turner’s salary for 2010/11 is £426,000, rising to £500,276 including performance related bonuses, pension and other payments.
Turner declined a proposed salary increase of £19,000 to £435,000 when the regulator’s performance was under heavy fire in 2009 to stay at £416,000. However, he accepted an increase in basic salary to £426,000 in April 2010 and another rise to £500,000 in 2011, giving him an annual increase of £74,000.
Executive director Margaret Cole, who has interim responsibility for the new Conduct Business Unit which will form the core of the new Financial Conduct Authority, will take home a payment package worth £263,686 this financial year. This compares to fellow executive directors Sally Dewar, who resigned this year from a £554,233 package, and Jon Pain on £519,270.
Martin Wade, director of mortgage advice firm Your Mortgage Decisions, said this is a very controversial subject, but if people justify the salary and head up an organisation like the FSA you would expect them to earn a commercially equivalent rate.
“These are large figures, but for people at the very top of the FSA. The bigger issue for me the regulator’s increasing cost base. Why does it need to be based in Canary Wharf, one of the best-known prime real estate sites in the EU? Do people who oversee regulation in the Midlands need to be based there?” he said.
He added that if these salaries are performance-related they should be applauded, but should always be examined given their funding through the industry.
