Severn Trent just doubled the size of the long-term pay package for its new chief executive, James Jesic, and the numbers can get very loud, very fast. The FTSE 100 water company says Jesic's LTIP will rise from 200% of his base salary to 400% as reflected in changes revealed in its most recent annual report. That matters because the LTIP headline is only part of the story: the company also says Jesic could receive as much as £4.8m in a single year after salary, annual bonus, LTIP and benefits are counted.

The same plan also sets up a potential pay leap over his predecessor, Liv Garfield. Under the scheme as described, Jesic could receive significantly more than Garfield, even as there is anger directed at water bosses' pay. The move is bound to land badly with anyone watching how wages and incentives in regulated utilities are expected to align with public outcomes, not executive windfalls. And because this is tied to a long-term incentive plan rather than just a one-off raise, the board is effectively telling stakeholders that it expects performance and oversight to justify the scale of the rewards.

To understand why this is a bigger deal than it sounds, remember what water companies in the UK are. These are businesses operating in a heavily regulated environment where the public and regulators expect service reliability, investment in infrastructure, and compliance.