Whistleblower hits back after water chief's claims over pay

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water's top boss has been accused of misleading Senedd members by claiming the company is "not attacking people's terms and conditions".

- CONOR GOGARTY

Welsh Water chief executive Peter Perry

Chief executive Peter Perry's statement from earlier this month has angered employees who are being stripped of a large portion of their pay.

Mr Perry, who has a £460,000-a-year base salary with total target remuneration of £894,000, was asked by a Senedd committee if the water supplier's executives would face pay cuts as part of its "trawsnewid" (transformation) plan to shed around 500 full-time-equivalent roles over the next two years and slash annual spending by £50m.

He replied: "Trawsnewid is not about cutting people's pay in the organisation at all. We're losing colleagues, regrettably, but we're not attacking people's terms and conditions."

But the Western Mail can reveal the nonprofit company is imposing a major reduction in pay for four of its teams. The removal of an allowance for working unsociable hours will see each affected employee's annual earnings cut by around £10,000 despite no change in their responsibilities.

After hearing Mr Perry's claim in the Senedd, one whistleblower told us: "I wanted to make you aware that Peter is attacking the frontline workers and then the senior managers are still receiving full pay and huge bonuses."

A Welsh Water spokesman described the removal of the time shift payment, which we understand will affect around 15 staff across the four teams, as an "isolated issue" which is "unrelated" to the wider restructure.

But the committee's chairman Llyr Gruffydd has told us: "We take seriously any suggestion that we may have been misled and we will be writing to Dŵr Cymru to clarify the situation as well as to follow up on a number of issues raised in the scrutiny session."

The whistleblower, whose £53,000 pay is to drop by around £10,000, works as a production shift controller at Welsh Water's biggest treatment works, Felindre, making sure water is processed safely for drinking.