Brian Souter shows heart with health drive for bus company staff

Published on Thursday 8 July 2010 17:46

STAGECOACH founder Brian Souter has given up £250,000 of the bonus he earned last year to support a health screening service for the company's bus drivers.

The donation - along with a pay freeze for all directors - contributed to Souter's pay package for the year ending 30 April falling to 762,000 from 1.1 million the previous year. Earlier this year, the bus and rail giant joined forces with private healthcare business BMI to launch a voluntary heart screening programme for all employees in the company's UK bus division. A specially equipped double decker bus tours depots carrying out screening. At the time of the launch Souter pledged to donate 1m towards the 2m cost of the initaive.

A spokesman for Perth-based Stagecoach said: "Brian has been passionate about the Healthy Heart Bus project and giving frontline employees a health benefit that is often only available to senior executives."

He continued: "As well as making a significant personal contribution to the project, he has taken a close interest in the detail and progress of the initiative."

More than 300 employees have so far taken part in the screening.

The group's latest annual report showed chief executive Souter received a basic salary of 553,000 and a 192,000 bonus made up of cash and deferred shares.

Finance director Martin Griffiths received 374,000 in salary and 374,000 in bonus as part of a total package of 852,000, down from 853,000. Chairman Robert Speirs was the highest paid non-executive director, receiving fees for the year of 150,000.

Total boardroom pay fell to 2.04m from 2.4m. The company froze salaries of executive directors and fees of non-executive directors for the year given the economic climate and "restraint on pay settlements across the group".