Scotland’s quangos dish out £10m in bonuses

ALMOST £10 million in bonuses was paid by Scotland’s taxpayer-funded quangos last year, according to figures obtained by The Scotsman.

The news comes despite a pledge to scrap many of the bodies as public spending is slashed.

Organisations including Scottish Water, Scottish Enterprise, police forces, colleges and universities are among those that paid out five-figure sums to individual staff members during the last financial year.

Even the NHS is paying hundreds of thousands of pounds, along with bodies such as the Registers of Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, according to figures obtained through Freedom of Information.

Scottish Water still makes the biggest pay-outs in Scotland’s public sector, with more than

£4m in 2010-11. Five directors of the quango shared a £450,000 one-off payment after meeting a four-year performance target. They included finance chief Douglas Millican and asset management director Geoff Aitkenhead, who both received bonuses of £103,000 to top up their total pay of £230,000.

A spokeswoman said it was the fourth-largest water company in the UK and one of Scotland’s biggest businesses, with an independently agreed pay scheme. “It was recognised we had to pay the right salaries to attract the right people,” she said.

Many public bodies have stopped or reduced bonus pay-outs, but the Scottish Prison Service was another big payer in 2010-11, with more than £700,000. This was down by more than half on the previous year – but 42 staff still enjoyed pay-outs of more than £2,000.

Despite the loss of thousands of nurses and midwives, NHS National Services Scotland – a “strategy and advice” body – paid £623,794 in bonuses last year, including one payment of £6,863.

It said the bonuses were mainly for “administrative staff on basic salaries”, adding: “The arrangements provide flexibility, motivation and incentives for staff to process the additional workloads, ensuring current and future service delivery.”

Conservation quango Scottish Natural Heritage paid out more than £65,000 in bonuses among 66 staff members, with a top pay-out of £2,813.

The University of Abertay, which rejected recent calls to merge with Dundee University to save costs, paid out £12,600 – including one bonus of £7,063.

College bosses also got in on the act, despite chronic funding problems in the sector. There was a bonus of £12,000 for one employee at Carnegie College in Fife and £4,407 for another at Coatbridge College.

National Museums Scotland paid out £27,465 last year, despite needing a £2 million government bailout to ensure the opening of the refurbished Scottish National Portrait Gallery remained on track.

Scottish Enterprise paid out £968,023 in 2010-11, including a top payment of £13,800. It said the payments covered the previous year’s staff performance and that future bonuses had now been scrapped.

“Due to pressure on our salary budget and employment costs into the future, we removed performance bonuses from 2010-11 pay offer for all staff,” it said.

Police forces paid out more than £1m, with the highest individual bonus, of £19,463, involving Grampian Police.

Labour MSP Richard Baker said: “The public find it hard to square off bonuses with the huge cuts that are being made across the public sector and the thousands of staff that are seeing their wages frozen for the second year running.

“The SNP government need to get a grip of the situation, as many organisations have put an end to such payments.”

Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: “With budgets having to be stretched further and further every year, we must ensure that as much money as possible goes towards providing the best front-line service possible.”

Finance secretary John Swinney set out the need to tackle the bonus culture in a statement to parliament a year ago, as he wrestled with a falling Scottish budget due to the spending squeeze. “As well as pay restraint, other measures such as reducing senior civil service costs and removing bonuses will also be needed,” he told MSPs.

A Scottish Government spokesman said its policy was to suspend bonuses in 2011-12 and again next year.

He added: “Our policy constrains pay growth while supporting lower-paid workers and helps to sustain public sector jobs and protect public services.

“As in the rest of the UK, the policy acknowledges the entitlement of many staff to progression within a pay band towards the appropriate rate for the job.”