Up to 112 directors of FTSE 100 companies are set to receive a pension worth at least ?200,000 a year - and 26 can look forward to a pension of at least ?500,000 a year - according to Labour Research magazine's annual survey of executives' pension arrangements.

The Labour Research survey found that almost 80 companies in the FTSE 100 still have final salary schemes for some or all of their directors. Typically these schemes have a generous accrual rate of 1/30th of salary per year and so will pay a pension of two-thirds salary after 20 years' service.

The disgraced Lord Browne, the former chief executive of oil multinational BP, tops the premier pension league. Browne, who resigned in May after lying in court over his private life, can look to a happy retirement as he picks up a pension of over ?1 million a year, or over ?20,000 a week. Two other directors - Lawrence Fish of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Howard Frank, vice-chair of cruise ship group Carnival - are rapidly approaching the ?1 million a year pension mark.

Other directors in the FTSE 100 have defined contribution schemes, where the pension is open to fluctuations in the stock market. This means that it is impossible to say how large a pension they will pick up. Nevertheless, the annual contributions made by companies to the schemes (also known as money purchase schemes) can be huge: Mick Davis, chief executive of mining group Xstrata, has had nearly ?989,000 paid into his scheme; and Arun Sarin, chief executive of mobile phones group Vodafone, gets contributions of 30% of his present base salary of ?1.27 million, which works out at nearly ?382,000 a year.

But it is a very different story for the ordinary retiree on an occupational pension. According to government figures in the Pensioners' Income Series 2005-06, the average occupational pension for a single pensioner was ?99 a week and ?192 a week for a pensioner couple. So Sir Fred Goodwin at the Royal Bank of Scotland (bottom of the table below) will get almost 100 times what the average single pensioner receives.

Meanwhile a survey by the National Association of Pension Funds earlier this year found that more than two-thirds of final salary schemes in the private sector are now closed to new members, with one in 10 schemes closing to new members last year.

Neal Moister, researcher for the Labour Research Department, who carried out the survey, said: ?Despite the high profile given to the huge disparity in pensions recently, this survey shows that little has changed. If anything, many of the directors we have looked at have seen their pensions go up considerably in the past year.?

Director	Company	Annual pension ?000
Lord Browne (1)	BP	1,050
Lawrence Fish	Royal Bank of Scotland	992
Howard S Frank	Carnival	940
Sir Francis Mackay (2)	Compass	830
John Sunderland (3)	Cadbury Schweppes	762
Todd Stitzer	Cadbury Schweppes	737
Jeroen van der Veer	Royal Dutch Shell	735
Patrick Cescau	Unilever	682
Dr Jean-Pierre Garnier	GlaxoSmithKline	652
Michael Bailey (4)	Compass	648
Robert Dickinson	Carnival	628
Sir Terry Leahy	Tesco	627
Sir Julian Horn-Smith	Vodafone	605
Paul Dacre	Daily Mail & General Trust	598
Dr John McAdam	ICI	590
Stephen Green	HSBC	586
Charles Sinclair	Daily Mail & General Trust	576
Mike Turner	BAE Systems	574
James Crosby	HBOS	572
Roger Urwin	National Grid	564
Paul Walsh	Diageo	556
Charles Allen (5)	ITV	548
Rudy Markham	Unilever	541
David Brennan	AstraZeneca	530
Gareth Davis	Imperial Tobacco	520
Sir Fred Goodwin	Royal Bank of Scotland	510

(1) Resigned May 2007
(2) Retired June 2006
(3) Retired August 2005 but still chair
(4) Retired May 2006
(5) Resigned October 2006

Editor's notes

• The full article appears in the August edition of Labour Research magazine.


• Labour Research is published by the Labour Research Department, an independent trade union and labour movement organisation founded over 90 years ago. More than 1,800 trade union organisations, including 55 national unions representing 99% of total TUC membership, are affiliated.


• The survey results are based on figures from company remuneration reports.


• Final salary pension schemes are based on members' earnings at or near retirement and guarantee a specified level of pension benefit. The norm is for workplace schemes to pay 1/60th of final pay for each year of membership. Money purchase schemes are based on the contributions made to the pension fund and the investment performance of the assets into which the funds are placed meaning the value of the pension benefit is uncertain.


• For further details on the National Association of Pension Funds survey go to www.napf.co.uk



• For further information on the Labour Research survey, contact Neal Moister on 020 7902 9824. For further information on Labour Research magazine, contact editor Nathalie Towner 020 7902 9817.