Hamish Champ: It's time for pubco chief exec's pay to be frozen

I read last week's news reports of senior bankers' bonuses with the sort of incredulity I usually reserve for people who argue the world was created in less than a week by an old bloke sporting a long white beard.

I don't have a problem if a Big Cheese leads from the front and guides a business to bigger and better things during the course of a given year; they are clearly a valuable asset and should be remunerated accordingly.

But the people who argue that those who have presided over the near-demise of this country's financial system should rewarded with hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonuses - reportedly millions in a couple of cases - simply because that is the "market rate" are quite frankly living on another planet.

There comes a point - and I reckon we're there - when bosses have to take stock, look around them and accept they need to show a bit of restraint, although sadly 'restraint' appears to be a word absent from the vocabulary of the UK's top bankers.

Closer to home, chief executives working in the pub industry have been well rewarded in recent years, and until lately I expect most shareholders have been satisfied with their efforts. But now's the time to put the brakes on executive pay.

I know those heading the UK's two largest pubcos, together with the individual atop one of the country's largest 'super regional' brewers, have forgone bonuses in their most recent respective financial years.

But never mind the bonuses. The basic pay of these individuals has still risen significantly, in most cases quite a bit above inflation.

The companies concerned will argue that such basic pay packages are designed to retain talented management. And besides, they'll no doubt similarly opine, such increases are set well in advance by remuneration committees packed to the rafters with scrupulously independent non-executive directors. But nevertheless the issue is still a contentious one.

With the country's economy still in the toilet and with the capital value of the companies they run in a similar predicament it would be no bad thing if those esconced in the top slots of the UK's pub outfits showed some empathy with the rest of us by accepting a freeze in this year's basic pay. They can surely afford it.

I'm sure these individuals are working tirelessly to ensure their companies come through the current economic crisis stronger, fitter, leaner and generally better placed to operate in the Brave New World that awaits us at the end of the dark, damp, rat-infested tunnel we find ourselves in.

And if they do succeed in ensuring their companies come out of the other side of the aforementioned tunnel thus intact there will be plenty of time to reward them for such sterling service at some point in the future.

But now is not the time to be showering them with cash.