Menu Content/Inhalt
Network Rail Announces Profits
Friday, 06 June 2008
Peter Henderson, the infrastructure director, was paid a £219,000 annual bonus and Ron Henderson, the finance director, received £209,000, in addition to receiving additional long-term bonuses of £153,000 each.

The total amount paid in bonuses to the three executive directors exceeds £1.2million, double the £648,000 paid last year and the highest amount ever awarded by the company.
Former chief executive John Armitt will get a £178,000 bonus for being for being in charge for part of the past three years. And all staff members will get an annual bonus of at least £871

The rail regulator wrote to the company’s remuneration committee last month advising it to take into account various failures when setting the bonuses.
ORR has published draft proposals requiring Network Rail to improve its efficiency and punctuality in 2009-14 - but with £3bn less than the firm had asked for. They will also be be asked to do less weekend engineering work.
The delays over the holiday period occurred after repairs at Rugby over-ran by four days, severing the West Coast Main Line, and caused massive disruption.

Network Rail conceded at the time that the work had been delayed because specialist workmen failed to turn up for work.
"Lessons have been learnt following the engineering overrun," said chairman Sir Ian McAllister.
"Changes have been made to make the planning and execution of such big improvement schemes more robust."
It said delays which could be attributed to the firm were reduced by one million minutes over the year - the lowest level for a decade.

Government income
About 50% of Network Rail's income comes directly from the government.
Most of the rest comes from rail operating companies which pay fees to use the tracks. However these fees are themselves set by the rail regulator. Additional income comes from its properties, including leasing space to shops at stations.

Political Fallout.

Mr Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said that there was "no point" in having performance-related bonuses if they failed to take into account that only half the job had been done properly. He said: "Whether people should get performance bonuses of that scale when there have clearly been very significant problems I think raises an issue that comes up too often with performance bonuses."

Louise Ellman, the Labour chairman of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee, described the bonuses as "outrageous and showing contempt for the public". She added: "The travelling public will feel outraged, as I do, that they are awarding themselves these bonuses." The Conservative transport spokeswoman Theresa Villiers said she was "astounded" at the size of the bonuses.

 
< Prev   Next >