Claw back Sir Fred's pension - survey

Thanks for those who replied to our survey - the response has been remarkable.

The largest survey yet on RBS has revealed that the public overwhelmingly wants the Government to slash former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin's £693,000 a year pension.

The survey of 3,710 people who signed our ‘Give Up The Bonus' online petition showed that 98.5% of respondents shouldn't receive the full pension with 98.2% saying they wanted to see part or all of the pension clawed back.

Of those who wanted to claw back the pension, 47.5% felt he deserved nothing, whilst 30.5% would give Sir Fred less than £50,000 a year and only 0.6% felt Sir Fred should be given up to £500,000 a year.

Respondents were also asked if they felt it was right that the former Grand Prix driver Sir Jackie Stewart should keep his sponsorship contract with RBS. 88.5% said no with a further 77.5% saying RBS should rip up his contract and take the risk of legal action.

This survey delivers a very clear message that the public view the payment of failure as totally unacceptable.

I agree with the vast majority of the public that unless he reconsiders his package, we must reclaw Sir Fred's pension.

Our survey also found that people won't accept Sir Jackie holding on to his £4m sponsorship contract. He too should reconsider his decision not to renegotiate and if he doesn't, we should rip up his contract.

Let's shred the pension and pitstop the contract.

The full questions and results from the 3,716 petitioners who responded to the online survey within just 3 hours on the afternoon of February 26th (An eighth of the 31,000 who had signed the petition) were as follows:

1. RBS, a bank that the public has a 70% share in, has just reported loses of £24 billion for last year. Do you think that the man responsible for this failure, former RBS Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin should now start receiving a £693,000 a year pension?

Yes 1.1%
No 98.5%
Don't Know 0.4%

2. RBS, UKFI and the Government have all asked Sir Fred to reconsider his pension package. Do you think we should now attempt to claw back his pension?

Yes 98.2%
No 1.2%
Don't Know 0.6%

3. If you are in favour of clawing back Sir Fred's pension, how much would you lime him to receive a year?

Upto £500,000 0.6%

£250,000 - £499,999 0.7%
£100,000 - £249,000 5.1%
£50,000 - £99,999 15.6%

Less than £50,000 30.5%

Nothing 47.5%

4. Do you think it's right that Sir Jackie Stewart should keep his sponsorship contract with RBS, worth a reported £4m?

Yes 4.7%

No 88.5%

Don't Know 6.8%

5.Do you think that RBS should rip up Sir Jackie's contract and take the risk of him taking the bank to court?

Yes 77.5%

No 9.6%

Don't Know 12.9%

As you know, I've used Facebook, Twitter and his blog at www.gofourth.co.uk to co-ordinate the campaign against bonus payouts, and managed to get more than 31,000 signatures at the online petition site www.giveupthebonus.co.uk

Once again, thanks for your help. Let's see what happens.