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Boris Johnson criticised for 'over-generous' pay-offs to 178 TfL managers
Martin Robinson01.06.10
Boris Johnson was today forced to defend a record £6million in redundancy pay-offs to Transport for London staff.
City Hall figures show that 10 senior managers got more than £100,000 with a further 18 receiving between £70,000 and £100,000 in the last financial year.
In total 178 staff received £5,973,373 in “golden goodbyes” compared with £3,385,042 given to 140 workers in 2008/9.
Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat leader on the London Assembly and the party's transport spokesman, criticised the pay-offs.
She said: “When TfL are facing such difficult financial challenges it is incredible that they are offering such generous redundancy payments to senior staff.
"Making redundancies is never easy but such incredibly large pay-offs are neither justified or necessary.”
But Mr Johnson insisted that the redundancies were needed to move forward with his restructuring of the organisation.
The Mayor said: “It must be remembered that this has been a period of restructuring across TfL to deliver a leaner, fitter and more focused organisation that provides better value for the taxpayer, and these figures reflect this.”
TfL says it is committed to minimising redundancies and that it tries to delete empty posts and use recruitment freezes.
Redundancy payments are made according to length of service and salary. Currently 80 staff at TfL earn more than £135,000 a year.
As well as cutting staff, the Mayor has said he has had to consider a mix of service cuts as well as fare increases to help fill the £5 billion black hole in TfL's budget.
Mr Johnson is considering cutting up to 1,200 jobs by only opening offices at quieter Tube stations at peak times.
There is also likely be a £1.7 billion bus subsidy cut up until 2017, which will probably lead to fewer services or some routes being cut altogether.
In total staff-reductions and changing computer systems could achieve £2.4 billion cuts, while a further £1.1 billion could be taken from projects such as dial-a-ride and cycling schemes.
Reader views (11)
Have no fear Boris's here.
- stuart, chesterfield,, 01/06/2010 22:39
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Josh, London - Even if someone gets a large payoff in a redundancy settlement the need to pay it back is only if you return shortly after being made redundent.
Once a few years have passed you can go back to where you worked without any requirement to repay your redundecy sttlement because you are now doing another job even if it was the same one you were made redundent from!!
Fact is making public servents redundent is not a good use of resources as the size of the organisations mean new staff are required just to replace those who leave either voluntarily or through retirement. Its far more economic to transfer staff between departments especially at lower grades where jobs have a large degree of similarity and can easily be picked up with some training.
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 01/06/2010 18:32
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Right, wrong or indifferent, the idea of anything to do with other peoples’ pay is now a dirty subject. How much to newspaper staff and editors earn? Now for a more appropriate question. How much of this trash is actually in the public interest and how much is in the ever shallower pockets of the newspaper owners? Finally how much of this is a direct result of Labour’s employment legislation?
- John, St Albans, 01/06/2010 17:33
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Who paid who and how much to print this story?
The Cameroons have been putting the boot into Johnson since their half-won victory for fear of BoJo becoming PM in less than a year, and the Standard - now it's a freebie - falls for it.
- David Short, Tunis, Tunisia, 01/06/2010 16:37
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Josh, don't let facts get in the way of your opinion. Mike Brown left of his own accord, he wasn't given a payoff. I work for LU and it's generally agreed that MB is the best man for the job in the times we are living through.
- Vic Warren, midhurst, 01/06/2010 16:15
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The problem lies with employment legislation - that we need to change.
- jeremy E, home counties, 01/06/2010 16:07
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It's never going to be cheap getting rid of people earning more than £135,000 pa. But paying an average of under £40,000 per person sounds cheap at the price.
Keep going Boris.
- Stephen C, London, 01/06/2010 16:06
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It's wonderful how generous people can be when it isn't their money they're handing out!
- Ken Bethell, Mazarron, Spain, 01/06/2010 15:19
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Hang on a minute, Mike Brown got a big pay off a few years ago to leave tfl. Which considering this article must be a nice enough sum and now he is back on a better job, better pay.
So did he pay back his big lump sum or was that just a waste of money?
- Josh, London, 01/06/2010 13:15
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Well at least he got rid of some rubbish.
- Anglo, Sussex England, 01/06/2010 12:11
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Probably isn't right, the pay outs, but it was not in his power to change this?, these were the terms which the Labour government allowed?
- M, London, 01/06/2010 11:48
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