Research from Incomes Data Services (IDS), revealing that pay for the directors of the UK’s top businesses rose 49 per cent over the past year, has brought a quick response from the Government.

IDS said the average pay for a director of an FTSE 100 company rose to just under £2.7m.

And Prime Minister David Cameron immediately called for more boardroom responsibility, while Deputy PM Nick Clegg pronounced such pay packets to be a “slap in the face” for millions who were struggling.

After all, according to the IDS study, the average wage rose only 2.3 per cent in 2010-11 compared to the 49 per cent for FTSE 100 directors in the same period.

In Oxfordshire the story reflects the national narrative fairly closely but with two differences: there are a higher number of people here working in the public sector than in many other counties and there are also a lot of people working for private concerns that are dependent on public patronage.

Prominent among the second group are the 2,500 employees of educational software supplier RM, which has its headquarters at Milton Park.

Last week, its chief executive Terry Sweeney resigned from his £305,000-a-year job — and shares immediately increased 20 per cent.

All agree that RM, which earlier this year announced up to 300 redundancies across the business, has long been a progressive and well-managed company.

But with the cutting of public spending, in particular the Building Schools for the Future programme, job losses were not unexpected.

But it is hard to avoid the feeling that the departure of the high-earning chief executive must send out the right message to employees left behind.

How can perceived injustices between those at the top and the rest of us be ironed out?

All agree that belt-tightening is necessary at the moment but many think the burdens are not being shared equally and a two-tier economy is emerging. Witness the anti-capitalist demonstration in London.

But Prof Thomas Noe, of Oxford University’s Said Business School, who has made a study of top remuneration, told The Oxford Times: “There is a lot of misunderstanding about reward and the important part it plays in shaping senior executive behaviour — even among academics.”

He added: “Many of the reward practices which are now commonplace arose in response to past tax, accounting or regulatory requirements which have long since been superseded, yet the reward practices have remained in place.”

Prof Noe said that offering share options came to prominence as a result of a Government initiative to encourage entrepreneurship in the boardroom.

There is no evidence that they succeed in doing so but they nevertheless remain popular even though there are better and cheaper alternative motivators about — such as well-conceived performance-related bonuses.

He said: ”Bonuses which rise at a decreasing percentage rate as targets are met, encourage executives to maintain effort beyond a certain point, which can be significant for an organisation.”

Prof Noe’s thoughts are mainly about how to use reward as a tool to make organisations more efficient rather than social implications of high pay for the nation as a whole.

From that narrow point of view he thought that Business Secretary Vince Cable’s suggestion, made earlier this week, that remuneration boards should include worker representatives was not desirable.

He refused to be drawn on whether something resembling a two-tier economy was developing in the UK — except to point out that chief executives, amazing as it may seem to most of us, are comparatively poorly paid compared to city whizz kids such as hedge fund managers.

He said: “The best solution for Government here lies through the tax system. Tax all high earners the same on a progressive scale.”

Most chief executives, like many top footballers, are outsiders rather than people who have worked their way up through the ranks.

And, strange to say, it seems that some Government efforts to name and shame companies by forcing them to disclose exactly how much they are paying their most expensive executives have actually backfired.

Prof Noe said: “Rules forcing companies to disclose pay has introduced a sort of boasting, like flaunting an Aston Martin or a Ferrari.

“They want the world to see how high-powered they are by flaunting the high pay of their chief executive.

“In Germany, where disclosure is not compulsory, remuneration packages are lower.”

Of course, the sad truth is that remuneration packages in private organisations are none of the business of the public at large — unless those organisations happen to be bailed-out banks.

High pay in the public sector on the other hand certainly is our business — and there are plenty of cases in Oxfordshire to ponder.

Why for example was Cath James, the former West Oxfordshire District Council strategic director for the environment, given a £110,000 golden goodbye? And why did the former head of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, Trevor Campbell Davis, receive a £100,000 pay-out? No explanation is forthcoming in either case.