Tram chiefs ride away with £1m in bonuses

Published on Monday 27 April 2009 09:55

TRAM bosses have been paid nearly £1 million in bonuses since the start of the project, it can be revealed today.

Figures show that those working for tram firm TIE have so far raked in a total of 970,000 – and that does not include any payments made in the last year.

Details of the bonus payments, which were today branded an "absolute disgrace", were released just days after the city council confirmed it would scrap tram line 1b due to the recession.

They show that TIE employees received total pay awards of 622,000 for the 15-month period from December 2006 to March 2008, and a total of 348,000 for the previous years up to December 2006.

No information was provided on which individuals received the payments, which were awarded to those achieving what TIE called "defined milestones and objectives".

One insider said it was likely the "vast majority" of the bonuses would have gone to a small number of senior managers.

He said: "It's most unusual for people in the public sector to be getting bonuses of this kind of magnitude, but TIE likes to think of itself as not really the public sector. They take the best of both worlds – the fancy gold-plated pension schemes of the public sector and the big bonuses of the private sector."

SNP MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville, who obtained the figures using the Freedom of Information Act, said they would be a "bitter pill" for residents "fed up with the chaos" caused by the tram works.

She said: "It's an absolute disgrace that TIE staff have been awarded almost 1m in bonuses from the public purse before a track is even laid.

"Bonuses are supposed to be awarded on the basis of jobs well done – what has been achieved so far apart from delays, disruption and cost overruns?

"Staff are already paid for doing their job. It's time they stopped rewarding failure and started producing results."

David McLetchie, Tory MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, said: "I'm astonished that people are being paid bonuses for a project that is over budget and not on schedule.

"They should not be paying people bonuses until the job is done, and clearly there's still a long way to go."

A TIE spokesman said: "Staff bonus schemes are part of modern HR strategies for the recruitment and retention of staff. This especially applies to projects of this type where there is a clear end date, as part of attracting the best people to the job."

In 2007, the Evening News revealed that then TIE chief executive Willie Gallagher was set to earn 340,000 worth of bonuses in just four years.

Mr Gallagher, who stood down in November due to personal reasons, was already earning a basic salary of 170,000.