A trawl of executive contracts reveals that million-pound pay and bonus deals are merely pocket money for the bosses of Britain's FTSE 100, as they enjoy special pension arrangements, second-home allowances and most day-to-day costs covered by their companies.

What becomes apparent after a trawl of contracts provided by proxy-voting group Manifest is that much of an executive's day-to-day cost is met by the company, leaving their million-pound pay deals as pocket money.

There have been positive moves. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, has recently switched to a much more suitable pay-off package for these straightened times. Until last year, he was eligible for compensation of four times his base salary, two times his bonus and two times his pension payment. He will now receive none.

However, Ms Wilson noted that in general: "On the face of it, we appear to have made good progress in eliminating two year contracts. But the net effect has been no change because they are receiving compensation for loss of office instead."

By Philip Aldrick, Helia Ebrahimi and Harriet Alexander Published: 9:13PM BST 21 Jun 2009

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