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CITY HALL PAYS £5MILLION IN STAFF BONUSES
‘Rewards are financially unsustainable and morally indefensible’
TOP bosses at City Hall are facing demands to take a pay cut after details of their massive salaries and bonuses emerged.
Figures released under Freedom of Information legislation reveal a staggering £5million of taxpayers’ cash was spent on Westminster Council staff bonuses last year.
More than £450,000 was divided up between 17 employees, including former chief executive Peter Rogers, who was the country’s highest-paid council employee in 2008. He took home more than £200,000, including a £42,500 bonus, taking his salary above that of the Prime Minister.
Critics argue the council’s top brass have been “rewarded for failure” in a year when it lost £17m in high-risk investments in doomed Icelandic banks despite official warnings.
But the council – which told the West End Extra it is now scrapping its bonus structure in favour of paying fewer employees even higher fixed salaries – has defended its largesse, insisting “our executives are worth every penny”.
Maria Fort, a policy analyst at the Taxpayers’ Alliance lobby group that unearthed the figures, said: “The size of council executives’ pay and perks is staggering. These rewards are financially unsustainable and morally indefensible.”
Westminster Council’s multi-million bonus bonanza is more than three times higher than neighbours Kensington and Chelsea, and 15 times more than the modest £300,000 paid out in Camden.
Bonus and pay are set by the council’s appointments sub-committee, consisting of three Conservative and one Labour representative and chaired by leader Councillor Colin Barrow.
Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour group, said: “These figures are unbelievable, particularly as the recent review of the council undertaken by the new chief executive, which revealed a picture of a council in chaos, with too many expensive layers of middle managers and departments which never talked to each other. It looks like the £42,000 payment was a reward for failure, rather than success.”
Westminster’s bonus structure was the third-highest of all the 280 councils that provided information, behind only Birmingham and Kirklees. Westminster Liberal Democrats say the cost of paying the bonuses added £39 to residents’ average council tax bill for 20007/08. They have criticised the council in the past for stumping-up tens of thousands of pounds to drive top executives to meetings in flashy BMW cars.
A spokesman for Westminster Council said it had recently agreed to scrap its bonuses scheme in place of introducing a new pay structure that will allow staff that “perpetually excel” to earn higher salaries.
A spokesman said that the new system would mean only the best staff would get jobs working for Westminster.
He said: “As chief executive Peter Rogers helped the council deliver over £20m savings in efficiencies – double our government target. During his last five years as chief executive, Westminster’s element of the council tax increased by less than £7 a year and remains the second-lowest council tax rate in the country.
“If you want to employ the best then you have to be prepared to pay competitive salaries and our executives are worth every penny.” |
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