Belcher salary hits £391,000
Anchor Trust boss John Belcher drew heavy fire this week after it emerged his pay rocketed to £391,000 last year in the depths of recession.
The eye-watering 20 per cent rise saw Mr Belcher retain the title of social housing’s highest paid chief executive. His £391,000 package for 2008/09 - which includes a £111,000 bonus - outstrips that of his nearest rival by £70,000.
Tory shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said such a large rise was ‘deeply inappropriate’ in difficult economic times. ‘It is a social enterprise, semi-charitable movement and salaries approaching £400,000 are out of kilter with what is going on in the rest of the country,’ he said.
Michael Gelling, chair of the Tenants’ and Residents’ Organisations of England, fumed: ‘It’s totally disproportionate with everything that is going on. Taking 20 per cent on exorbitant rates of pay - while many people are struggling to make ends meet - it’s immoral.’
Anchor said its main competitors were private developers such as McCarthy & Stone, private health care company Bupa and for-profit care providers Southern Cross and Sunrise Senior Living, as well as housing associations. Anchor chair Aman Dalvi said: ‘The remuneration and nomination committee used an average of data from private companies, large charities and social care organisations.’
William Colvin, chief executive of Southern Cross, drew a salary of £430,000 in the year ending September 2008. But his company’s turnover was £889 million, more than three times Anchor’s 2008/09 turnover of £267 million.
Mr Belcher insisted Anchor was different to other social landlords. ‘Less than half of our income comes from social housing,’ he said. ‘We haven’t drawn down any grant in the last four years.’
The 37,163-home trust, which has 10,707 staff, also provides sheltered housing, domiciliary care, nursing care and other older people’s services. Anchor has enjoyed a solid year, according to Mr Belcher, with only five redundancies. ‘We sold some investments at the height of the market and have some very strong loan agreements that we think [would be] the envy of anyone.’
In the past five years, Anchor’s turnover has increased by 20 per cent, while Mr Belcher’s salary has shot up by 85 per cent. In 2008/09 its turnover increased by just 0.8 per cent.
Social housing chief executives saw their pay rise by an average of 7 per cent over the last year, with a top rise of 47 per cent.
20%
John Belcher’s pay rise 2008/09
2%
Anchor Trust staff’s average survey rise 2008/09
£391,000
John Belcher’s total remuneration 2008/09
£12,500
Anchor trust care assistant salary 2008/09
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment
Readers' comments (9)
Melvin Bone | 18/09/2009 9:10 am
I'm sure the staff are also in line for a decent pay rise then.
An 85% pay rise in 5 years is pretty good...
What pay rise did the staff get in that period?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Andrew Fiske | 18/09/2009 9:17 am
A figure of 40% of Anchor's housing stock as bedsits has always stuck in my mind and with the rest of the housing stock for older people below 21st century standards shouldn't we be expecting Anchor to be leading from the front? No grant in the last 4 years doesn't seem to be a positive attribute unless Anchor are providing new Extra Care schemes without public money. If they are can they get in touch as we need around 6 built in our area!! Mr Belcher is a very eloquent speaker and good luck to anyone getting that salary. I just hope that Anchor steps up to the plate and helps to show how housing,care and support should be provided for older people otherwise the ambitious national strategy will continue to be an aspiration. I would also suggest that Hanover are in the same position and should also be setting an example.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Iain Sim | 18/09/2009 12:08 pm
Isn't so appropriate that an RSL Chief Executive receives a 20% pay award, at a time when the NHF are pleading such dire consequences over a negative rent cap, when unemployment and recession is in full swing and people are losing their jobs and their homes, many of whom are OUR customers and tenants, at a time when the credability of the sector is under such scrutiny.
Thank you Mr Belcher for you tact and self awareness. Clearly such matters are not on your agenda but for the vast majority of socially aware organisations you have just succeeded in tarring us all with the same brush and once again put us ALL very firmly at he forefront of the political spotlight
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
kass | 18/09/2009 1:59 pm
Melvin Bone | Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:10 GMT....
so are you and all your colleagues doing all your hard work to help tenants - who are the ones who pay your wages - or for this kind of guy who earns as much to buy himself a prime property each year?...
there must bee at least a dozen of people in his own organization capable to do his job at a quarter of his price. And there must be literally hundreds of similarly capable excutives in the country queuing to do his job at a quarter of his price. So why tenants should be paying him when we can pay someone elses a quarter of his price?.... Why at least £300,000 a year should be taken away from tenants services in this way?... and how these Executives can justify their organisations evicting their tenants when they are eight weeks in arrears - which is something like £500 - when they themselves deprives his own organisation of all this money?... If this is not robbing the poor to give to the rich what else it is?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Harry Lime | 18/09/2009 3:44 pm
Kass, unfortunately whilst tenants might ultimately pay his wages they are not responsible for deciding whether he has a job or if he should keep it. It's like me saying because I give Tesco £100 a week for my food shopping I have a say in what Terry Leahy gets paid or if he should keep his job. Whether someone else would do it for less is an irrelevance, you could say the same for every job, almost without exception down to minimum wage. Referring to wages as depriving the service of money is bizarre, should I claim minimum wage for my job and don sackcloth and ashes in the hope the local council tax bill would be minmal?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
kass | 18/09/2009 5:02 pm
Harry Lime | Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:44 GMT...
Your reasoning is not fitting the crime here... First, I have a choice whether to go to Tesco or Marks and Spencer to buy my lunch and if I want it cheaper to Iceland. I can choose any lunch providers I like which I find convenient with no loss to me. I do not have a choice who I pay my rent than my landlord, unless I give up my tenancy which would result with a loss of my home... It is not irrelevan, as you say, for any UK citizen to make a fuss about how this guy and people in his postitions get paid, it is imperative to do so, because it's public money and we are in a democracy. For Uk citizens who are also social tenants it's double imperative to do so abd be alarmed and angry at this scandal... I said, there are hundreds if not thousands of equally capable professionals who can do this guy's job at a quarter of his price. You should have calculated that as 100k a year. What's bizarre about a chief executive being paid 100k a year?... How come you do not find bizarre being paid almost half-million a year?... Your notion of what's bizarre makes no sense. Why should you claim minimum wage - what's all this got to do with your salary? Unless you are getting as much as this guy I have not said single word about how much or how much less you should be paid...
If this guy and your friends want to earn this much money, instead od depriving their organisation of all those scandalous amounts spent on their overblown salaries, they are welcome to resign and go to work for the private sector and good luck to them...
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
fast eddie | 10/10/2009 1:51 am
I am still trying to figure out how Anchor qualify as a charity. Of course they don't make a profit they make a surplus which I think was over £26, 000,000
or so last year.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
WATT | 12/10/2009 9:37 am
fast eddie | Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:51 GMT
Let me explain - they are social purpose charities when it comes to funding, hiking up rents for survival and bleating about selling off their properties to tenants. They are private businesses when it comes to FOI Act, Regulation, their other RSL equals deciding their salaries, public scrutiny or selling off their homes on open market to "fulfil their social purpose ".
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
siggy | 06/11/2009 11:24 am
Makes you wonder when the wardens at their homes so we are told are on salaries of just £12000/year
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment