SCOTTISH Widows' staff and top management clashed publicly at the life and pensions office's annual meeting yesterday over this year's pay settlement having been imposed without union consultation.

The subject was aired by employees, along with demands that the Edinburgh-based mutual reveals how it set executive directors' salaries.

It cropped up repeatedly at the meeting in Edinburgh's Sheraton Hotel and Widows' chief executive, Mike Ross, was eventually goaded into a scathing attack on the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF).

His outburst followed comments from Neil Paulin, who works in Widows' information technology department. He told the Widows board: ''Surely the salient point here is the lack of consultation with staff. My understanding is that the union did, at an early stage, seek to renegotiate their procedural arrangements with management and management seem to have gone out of their way to avoid doing this.''

Ross said: ''I am anxious to avoid some kind of public slanging or insult match between ourselves and MSF because we have, I think, had very good relations with them over very many years.''

But, justifying Widows' decision to circumvent the previously-followed bargaining procedures in implementing the pay review from May 1, he added: ''It is only five years ago that quite frankly, when this company was heading for oblivion, the union took us all the way to arbitration over a six-month period, lost that, and we were six months late in introducing revised salary scales for all our staff.

''We had to reach our judgment in light of a pay claim which MSF submitted to us earlier in the year which I think, to put it mildly for the members as a whole, was a fairly aggressive one.''

He said an ''annual confrontational pay round has no real sense'' but, referring to talks between human resources director Alasdair MacIntyre and a MSF national officer next week, he expressed his hope that a better way could be found.

Ross said after the meeting that the average pay settlement was just above 5%.

But the MSF, which said that about 2000 of Widows' 2500 employees were potentially within its bargaining unit and that it represented about 70% of these workers, put the average rise in basic salary at about 4.25%.

Ross was also ultimately forced, following demands by staff member and union representative Graham Hunt, Paulin, and a Mark Elder, into disclosing the life offices looked at by Widows in setting his salary.

He put his total remuneration of #237,000 in 1996 in the context of the #411,000 paid to Standard Life's group managing director, Scott Bell, that year. He said the equivalent figure was #314,000 at Equitable Life, #245,000 at Scottish Amicable, #328,000 at Scottish Equitable, #195,000 at Scottish Provident, and #183,000 at Scottish Life.

He said the figure at English life office NPI (National Provident Institution) was #221,000 but added that it had just recruited a new chief executive externally, at a salary ''some 40% higher than mine''.

Widows was also lambasted by policy-holder Miss Mackenzie, a regular and vociferous feature of quoted company annual meetings, over their treatment of her.

She said: ''By attending and speaking at last year's annual meeting, I was informed by a member of staff on duty: 'You disrupt meetings'.''

Deputy chariman Gavin Gemmell, who chaired yesterday's meeting, replied: ''I think we welcome policy-holders coming to annual meetings and I am sorry if you felt your interjections were unwelcome last year. I don't believe that is the case.''

Mackenzie said: ''I am glad you have made a half apology for the unpleasant things that happened to me last year.''