Severn Trent CEO Liv Garfield earns more than eight similar organisation leaders combined

The boss of Severn Trent has been paid more than all of the CEOs of eight "similar" organisations combined, an analysis has revealed.

Liv Garfield, who became the water company's CEO in 2014, received more than the bosses of Ofwat, National Highways, Network Rail Manchester University NHS Trust, the Environment Agency, Scottish Water, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Cambridge University in the three years to March 2024.

Receiving a three-year average payment of over £3.4million, she took home £3.9million in the 2021/22 financial year and £3.2million in the 2022/23 financial year.

Ms Garfield is the highest paid of a cohort of 10 private water CEOs, the analysis by the Windrush Against Sewage Pollution charity (WASP) said.

Ash Smith, founder of WASP, said: "Government and regulators have stood by and watched water company bosses take ludicrously high pay for decades. These people are running monopolies that are breaking the law routinely while they extract dividends from captive billpayers.

"Do we think government claims to be tackling this with new laws are credible? No, we need strong leadership to reform a broken model and take out the excessive profit motive or regulators will never control the industry and the public and environment will always be the losers."

The analysis acknowledges that Ms Garfield "undoubtedly has a challenging role" managing a workforce of 7,000 and a budget of around £2billion.

She is also responsible for securing freshwater supply to 4.6 million households through a newswork of 15,000 pipes which need constant maintenance.

Water company bosses have taken home more than £100 million in salaries and bonuses over the last 10 years despite overseeing a major sewage crisis in the country's waterways.

Sewage spills into England's rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023.

According to the Environment Agency, there were 3.6 million hours of spills, compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.

Charles Watson, chair and founder of River Action, said: "The sight of Liv Garfield walking off with a £3.2m pay package at the same time as Seven Trent being found by the Environment Agency to have "recklessly" polluted the River Trent with the illegal dumping of 260 litres of raw sewage is just outrageous.

"Such levels of CEO compensation for running a monopoly business which has no competitors is wholly inappropriate in any case. To receive such rewards for systemically breaking the law adds insult to injury."

The Government has said it wants the sector to reduce spills and even proposed sweeping new laws which could see bosses face up to two years in jail if they obstruct regulators.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill, introduced to Parliament on September 4, will hand new powers to Ofwat and the Environment Agency to take action on companies damaging the environment and failing customers.

Meanwhile, regulator Ofwat recently published plans to limit proposed hikes to consumer water bills put forward by firms for the next five years while also punishing them for excessive pollution.

Severn Trent declined to comment.