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£1.8 million paid in bonuses to Olympic venue managers
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent22.10.09
Managers at the Olympic Delivery Authority are being handed bumper bonuses of more than £18,000 a year, the Standard has learned.
Bosses at the authority were today urged to “tighten their belts” as the full extent of staff payouts were revealed.
It comes amid a row over City bonuses after Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan revealed bankers are in line for payouts of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Details of perks for 206 staff at the ODA, the agency tasked with building the Games venues,
showed that 29 department heads earning an estimated £70,000 to £100,000 enjoyed average windfalls of more than £18,000 each for the second successive year.
These include head of design Jerome Frost, head of human resources Wendy Cartwright and health and safety boss Lawrence Waterman.
Bonuses for the 2008/09 financial year paid by the ODA, which is funded by Government and City Hall, totalled £1.8 million at an average of almost £9,000.
These included roughly £9,000 for about 80 middle
managers, thought to earn £50,000-£60,000, and bonuses of up to £3,400 for junior staff.
Financial rewards for the ODA staff were excluded from the agency's annual report in July but have been published in a parliamentary written answer.
The details have reignited claims of government largesse towards the ODA after it emerged in the annual report that eight ODA directors received annual windfalls this year averaging £60,000.
The best paid was chief executive David Higgins whose £537,000 package included a £210,000 bonus, half of which he deferred until 2012.
All but one of the ODA's directors earns more than the Prime Minister's basic salary of £192,000.
The ODA, which has a £6 billion publicly funded budget, was urged to reduce staff numbers once the first venues are complete in 18 months.
Many ODA staff are likely to avoid the year-long public-sector pay freeze under a Tory government as this would not take effect until 2011.
Liberal Democrat Olympics spokesman Tom Brake said: “The ODA cannot avoid the belt tightening that is the norm in every other sector.”
An ODA spokesman said: “Bonuses for staff are linked to performance and the project is on track and within budget.”
Reader views (12)
Higgins must be the most arogant man to walk the earth. Just speek to him! you will soon form the same opinion! Then why does he even get paid at all as his ODA has not even taken into consideration that a number of football and Rugy pitches and clubs will find that they will be without their facilities for months if the plans go ahead to use Greenwich and Woolwich. So use their bonuses to compensate those clubs! What a negligent "cock-up" by Higgins and his ODA staff.
- Clare, cardiff
Why don't we rename the Olympics the "Black Hole" Games? After all, our money disappears down a black hole, never to be seen again!
- Cally G, Essex, UK
Wow....another financial fiasco!!!!!
I'd love to get a £10 bonus...and i do my job properly!!!!
Why are these twats being paid bonus' if they are not meeting the fundamental tasks for their job???
oooooo....ggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....does make me angry!!!
- Moo, London
1.8 million that could have been used to help current athletes improve and create more sporting facilities for the future kids that want to go into sports..
- Mark, Watford
And yet some of the Olympic sports like water polo still haven't received proper funding, after the £50 million shortfall. There wouldn't be a shortfall if money wasn't wasted on those whose only interest in a gold medal is in the "gold" part of it.
This is public money too - our taxes are funding the bonuses.
Meanwhile LOCOG are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Greenwich residents by pretending that taxpayers' money isn't being used to fund the equestrian events. In their FAQS section of the Greenwich brochure they pose the question "Are the events in Greenwich being paid for with taxpayers' money?" And the answer is "No, the venue is paid for by LOCOG. LOCOG is privately financed through sponsorship, tickets, merchandise and broadcast rights and does not spend any taxpayers money." Really?
- Sally, Ipswich
This is plain wrong
- Very Very Angry At Paying Tax For Mp'S Expeses, Home Counties
“Bonuses for staff are linked to performance and the project is on track and within budget.”
Would that not be a basic requirement of the job. Surely this publicly funded jamboree should hire people on the basis that if they fail to meet time and budget targets, they will have paenalty sums deducted from their paycheques.
If they want to be treated like subcontractors, let's do the job properly!
- John C, Leatherhead
More fatcats milking the system. Running late, over budget & these scammers still get a bonus.
- Dom, london
Phew... Now maybe they can explain how the cost has increased from £2bn to £9bn, and the missing £100m black hole...
Another fine case of £££'s well spent...
- Scrappy-Doo, London
THEY ARE PAID TO BRING IT IN ON TIME AND BUDGET WE ARE BREEDING PARASITES WHO FEED OF THE TAX PAYER IM SURE A MERE MORTAL WOULD ABLE AND GLAD TO DO THIS JOB WITHOUT THE BONUSES LOOK AT SEBASTION COE NO OBVIOUS QUALIFICATIONS THERE ONLY DRINKING AT THE RIGHT WATERING HOLE
- Anon, leicestershire
YOUR INCOME TAX PAID FOR THIS
I guess you can afford it otherwise you would complain, wouldn’t you !
- James, City of London
£18k bonus for what exactly? Presumably their job is to run on schedule and to budget? I could understand bonuses if the project were ahead of schedule and under budget. However, to my knowledge, most of the components are over schedule and over budget so everyone is actually failing at the most basic level of their role, how on earth can they be being rewarded for failure? Oh, that's right, they're civil servants.
- Bob, Cheam
