Brown backs off A1 dualling vow
Jul 4 2008 by William Green, The Journal
Transport officials get millions
THE Department for Transport is under fire for paying staff £26m in bonuses while travellers are stuck in traffic jams.
At least £26m was handed to workers at the DfT and its agencies between 2003-04 and 2007-08 – the largest payment being £22,894.
Some 68% of staff received bonuses totalling £3.8m in 2007-08, a drop from 77% getting £10m in the previous 12 months.
And the information supplied to MPs does not include all payments, omitting the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and others. Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said details could be given only at disproportionate cost.
Chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance Matthew Elliott said: "There has been a boom in bonuses in this department, but transport hasn’t got particularly better around the country.
"These bonuses are meant to be performance-related, not handed out at random without any thought for the reality on the ground."
A DfT spokeswoman said it employed about 18,000 people in the central department and executive agencies, and abided by government pay policy when awarding bonuses.
"Bonuses encourage high attainment because they have to be earned each year and are based on individual high performance.
"They motivate people and support better public service delivery."
Defiant MPs reject reform of expenses
MPS rejected reforms of their controversial expenses last night, in defiance of public uproar over their taxpayer-funded claims for kitchens, bathrooms and plasma televisions.
While voting to keep the £24,000-a-year budget to buy and kit out second homes, they also killed off moves to subject their allowances to external audits.
They approved a new programme to kit themselves out with bigger and better constituency offices at an additional cost to the taxpayer of up to £3.2m every year.
Liberal Democrat Nick Harvey, who sits on the Members’ Estimate Committee which called for reforms, was scathing about the decision.
"It was a total own-goal on the part of the House of Commons," he said. "An opportunity to put our house in order and be seen to put our house in order has been passed up. They took all the nice bits of the package but not the ones they didn’t like. They took the spoonful of sugar but refused the medicine."
Their decision on their expenses overshadowed their display of restraint earlier yesterday when they awarded themselves a pay rise of only 2.25% for this year. They also rejected "catch-up" payments of £650 a year for the next three years.
It will be the last time MPs debate and vote on their own pay rise after they agreed to link future increases to those given to other public sector workers such as doctors and teachers.
