And now for something not Covid-19 related.
The Chief Executive of TSB, Debbie Crosbie, has been criticised by the Investment Association for refusing to take a pension allowance at the same rate as the majority of TSB staff. The Investment Association, whose members manage £7.7 trillion of assets on behalf of their clients, said: “The IA maintains that pension alignment is beneficial as a point of principle to all companies and is rightly becoming an accepted market practice”. It goes on to say: “we have seen a number of banks take a pro-active leading in aligning their executive pension contributions to the workforce, with executives taking a significant leadership role in voluntarily reducing their pension contributions”. Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered have already announced pension alignment for their Chief Executive Officers and senior executives. Mrs Alison Rose, who was appointed to run the RBS a few months after Debbie Crosbie took up her role, receives a pension allowance of 10%, the same as the majority of RBS staff. That’s true leadership.
When Debbie Crosbie was appointed, she received a salary of £633,333 for the period 1 May to 31 December 2019. In addition, she received a pension allowance of £122,115 or 17.7%. TSB staff are in a defined contribution pension scheme and the bank makes contributions of between 8% and 13%. The vast majority of staff get employer contributions of either 8% or 10%; significantly less than the 17.7% awarded to Mrs Crosbie. And members shouldn’t forget that Mrs Crosbie forced through the changes to pension scheme earlier this year resulting in staff paying investment and administration charges for the first time.
The TSB Board should reconsider Mrs Crosbie’s pension allowance and align it to what the vast majority of TSB staff receive. A pension allowance of 10% on a salary of almost £1 million a year is more than enough for anyone in the current environment.
Members with any questions on this should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 716029 (choose Option 1).