THANK you for reporting the “inflation-busting” pay increases awarded to Oxford’s top health bosses (Oxford Mail, October 4).

In its call for greater transparency, the High Pay Commission states that high executive pay is “corrosive” to the UK economy. Indeed, I assert that the worldwide economic mess is attributable to excessive executive compensation.

Yet, pay awards for the top one per cent continue to create perverse incentives that reward the elite of management for the quantity rather than the quality of the work done.

The decisions that led to the economic meltdown were made by high flyers who knew that they would be richly paid, no matter how successful the consequences of those decisions.

They happily privatised the profits, but left us to nationalise the debts that resulted from their toxic decisions.

In the past 30 years, top executive pay in the UK has risen by as much as 5,000 per cent – while average wages increased threefold.

I find it hard to stomach pay rises for people who are very well-off at a time when their workers are required to accept real-term reductions as inflation erodes the buying power of their pay. The priority must be to provide for a fair living wage for workers at the bottom of pay scales – not to further enrich the well-off elite.

VAN COULTER Labour and Co-operative Councillor for Barton and Sandhills Oxford City Council

Coniston Avenue

Oxford