STORY
The Government has criticised Thames Water after the financially troubled company paid its chief financial officer Steve Buck a £1 million signing-on payment. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs described the payment as “unacceptable” and said water companies should follow both the letter and spirit of rules restricting executive bonuses.
Buck joined Thames Water in April 2025 and received the delayed £1 million payment at the end of July 2026. The payment formed part of the package agreed to persuade him to join the company and was made after Thames Water took legal advice about its contractual obligations.
The money was drawn from emergency financing provided by Thames Water’s creditors rather than directly from customer bills. The funding is being used to keep the company operating while creditors negotiate a longer term rescue of the business.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it was unacceptable for one of the country’s worst performing water companies to make large payments to executives when it should be concentrating on improving its performance and rebuilding public confidence. The Department said it expected companies to comply with both the wording and intention of restrictions introduced on executive bonuses.
Thames Water is among the water companies prevented from paying performance related bonuses to senior executives because of environmental and financial performance. The £1 million paid to Buck was a signing-on payment and therefore falls outside the performance related bonus arrangements. Ofwat has said it will examine the use of retention and other non performance related payments as part of a review.
Buck received total remuneration of £591,000 for the financial year ending in March 2026, including a base salary of £491,000. His basic salary was subsequently increased to £630,000 from April. Thames Water chief executive Chris Weston received total remuneration of approximately £1.2 million during the year.
The company remains in negotiations over its financial future. A group of creditors has proposed a restructuring involving new investment, new borrowing and the writing off of billions of pounds of existing debt, while the Government retains the option of placing Thames Water into a special administration regime if an acceptable private sector rescue cannot be agreed.