Executive pay 'not fair or efficient'

Senior executives in the UK's biggest companies have seen their average earnings go up by more than a quarter in the past year.

New research suggests the bosses of top firms made an average of £4m a year.

Incomes Data Services, which compiled the figures, says pay and bonuses have hardly risen at all, instead the increase is due to a rise in value of long term incentive plans which have replaced cash bonuses.

Director of the High Pay Centre Deborah Hargreaves told BBC News that the schemes were not an efficient method of of rewarding performance and companies were "not getting what you pay for".