Sceptical by design. Accurate by obligation.

Since October 2024, Britain’s electricity and gas system operator has been a publicly owned corporation. Its costs, including the cost of balancing the grid, end up on consumer bills. Its executives receive performance-related pay. It’s fair to ask what that pay is for, and what the public gets for its money.

This site sets two sets of numbers side by side: what the top job pays and how the awards are decided, and what independently published data shows about system costs, reliability and consumer outcomes. It does not claim that one causes the other. It shows both and leaves the judgement to you.

The tone is irreverent. The numbers are not. The name pokes fun at the incentive structure, not at the person, and we hold ourselves to the same standards we’d expect of the organisation we’re scrutinising.

Every published figure has, as a minimum:

• a stable identifier;
• a link to the original document or dataset, with a page number or dataset/resource identifier;
• an exact period and a unit;
• a label saying whether it is reported (copied from the source), calculated (derived by us using a published method), an estimate, or a proxy;
• a verification status and the date we accessed the source.

Calculated figures can be reproduced with scripts in the project repository, using the files listed in the source registry. Every record is validated when the site is built. A figure without a source, or one not marked as verified, stops the build instead of being published.

Where we haven’t been able to verify something, the site says “Research in progress”. We never fill the gap with a plausible-looking number. New reconstructions start as provisional. They are listed in the evidence registry but kept out of charts and headlines until reviewed.

For transparency: at present, “verified” means a figure passes automated checks against the stored source file, and an AI research assistant has read the cited page or table. Human sign-off of every figure is outstanding and will happen before launch.

The full method for each figure is in the evidence section.

NESO works within physical, regulatory and investment constraints that it does not control. Transmission networks are built by separate companies. Connections policy is shaped by Ofgem and government. Gas prices, weather and interconnector flows move costs by billions. Much of the recent rise in constraint costs reflects generation being built faster than the wires to carry it.

So not every system cost or failure can be laid at the CEO’s door, and we don’t suggest otherwise. What is fair to ask is whether the incentives at the top are aligned with the outcomes the public cares about, and whether the measures used to award bonuses are published in enough detail for anyone to judge.

FY2024-25 was a transition year: six months under National Grid ownership and six as NESO. Some of the pay in that year comes from National Grid schemes granted before NESO existed.

If you think a figure is wrong, out of date or unfairly presented, tell us. Include the record ID from the evidence registry and the source you’re relying on. We will:

1. check the claim against the primary source;
2. correct the record and its access date if we were wrong;
3. add a dated correction note to the record, rather than silently changing it;
4. reply to say what we did and why.

A corrections contact will be published here before the site launches.

NESO itself has a right of reply, which we will publish alongside the relevant figure.