No bonuses for building society chief executives

David Cutter's total remuneration for 2009 totalled 380,000 compared to 320,000 the year before.

Meanwhile, Iain Cornish, chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society, saw his total pay, including taxable benefits and accrued pension, fall from 357,000 to 355,000.

Last week the society reported a loss for the first time in its 146-year history. A spokeswoman for Skipton Building Society said the 60,000 boost reflected Mr Cutter's promotion from corporate development director to the role of chief executive in January 2009.

Neither Mr Cutter nor Mr Cornish received a bonus, in line with most of the financial services industry directors.

The Skipton spokeswoman said: "Our board has decided that bonuses aren't appropriate this year, given the operating environment and the need to focus on efficiency and boosting core business profitability for the benefit of members. The only exception to this is our finance director Tom Wood, who will receive a guaranteed bonus of 25,000 as part of his contractual appointment package."

In addition, Skipton's executive team, including Mr Cutter, will not receiving a basic pay increase in 2010.

The news of Mr Cutter's pay deal comes after it was revealed he would increase Skipton's standard variable rate from 3.5 to 4.95 per cent in January despite a guarantee that members would never have to pay more than three per cent above the base rate. Mr Cutter said he reserved the right to remove the ceiling in "exceptional circumstances" but members are mounting a legal case against the society.

Last week, the UK's fourth largest building society, which has 830,000 members and 15.6bn of assets, posted group pre-tax profits up 41m to 63.5m.

Meanwhile, YBS, which is merging with Chelsea Building Society to create the UK's second-biggest building society, last week fell into a 12.5m annual loss compared with an 8.3m profit the year before.

Mr Cornish insisted the reason was because the society, which has 23bn of assets and 2.1m members, was protecting its savers from the effects of the recession. Speaking about his remuneration package, a YBS spokeswoman said: "As a building society each year we ask our members to vote on the director's pay and they ultimately vote for or against the level of remuneration."

Leeds Building Society refused to release the pay details for its chief executive Ian Ward ahead of its annual report, which members were due to receive this morning. In 2008 Mr Ward received 423,000 including a 54,000 bonus and a long term bonus of 48,000.

Building societies continued to see their share of the mortgage market fall during January, with net lending contracting for the 13th month in a row.

Consumers repaid 819m more mortgage debt than was advanced to new borrowers during the month, the biggest net repayment since February 2009, according to the Building Societies Association.