Transport for London (TfL) shelled out nearly £6m in redundancy pay-offs during the last financial year, it emerged today.
Figures from the Greater London Authority show that 10 senior managers got more than £100,000, with a further 18 receiving between £70,000 and £100,000 in 2009-10.
In total, 178 staff received £5,973,373 – compared with £3,385,042 given to 140 workers in 2008-09.
Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat leader on the London Assembly and the party’s transport spokesman, criticised the pay-offs, which came as TfL aims to deliver £5bn of efficiency savings.
“When TfL is facing such difficult financial challenges, it is incredible it is offering such generous redundancy payments to senior staff,” she told the London Evening Standard.
“Making redundancies is never easy, but such incredibly large pay-offs are neither justified nor necessary.”
But Frank Douglas, director of group HR at TfL, insisted that redundancy has been used as “an option of last resort”, with headcount significantly reduced through natural wastage and external recruitment restricted.
“To minimise redundancies, we have prioritised at risk staff for internal vacancies, offered other employment locally or provided re-training,” he told Personnel Today. “Consideration of employment across the organisation is made before a payment is made to an employee, and employees must also have at least two years continuous service to receive a payment.”
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