FORMER SSE chief executive Ian Marchant was paid £655,000 for his final three months at the utility, the company's annual report has shown.

That document also reveals new chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies saw his annual remuneration rise from £1.6 million to £2.7 million for the 2014 financial year.

Mr Marchant left SSE on June 30, 2013, but the report shows he received a salary of £223,000 as well as long and short term bonus awards worth £426,000 for the period from April 1. He also got benefits which were listed as being worth £6,000.

The annual report notes Mr Marchant, who counts the chairman position at Wood Group among his non-executive roles, would have been entitled to an annual pension of around £429,000 but decided to take it in a lump sum of £6.8 million.

Mr Phillips-Davies received a salary of £702,000 having taken on the top job at the start of July last year.

Bonuses were worth £657,000, down from £824,000 the previous year, while benefits came in at £24,000.

The largest increase was in the pension contributions for Mr Phillips-Davies. That increased from £251,000 to more than £1.3 million.

SSE said that was driven by the increase in his base salary when he took the chief executive role. The company's remuneration committee has also decided to give Mr Phillips-Davies a 6.6 per cent rise in his salary to £805,000.

It said: "The committee considered the fact that he had been appointed at a salary that more than 15% below that of the previous incumbent. In addition, the Committee also took into account the excellent start Mr Phillips-Davies has made to the role, including his leadership around customer affordability, and the structural changes that have been successfully made to the management team in SSE."

SSE chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin saw his fees increase from £353,000 to £362,000.

In May SSE, which like others in the sector has faced criticism for increasing prices, posted a 9.6 per cent rise in annual profits to £1.6 billion for the 12 months to March 31.