According to Transport for London, Every Journey Matters. But at the higher echelons of TfL, every salary matters too.
Around this time each year, TfL publishes its annual accounts. Base salaries, bonuses, pension contributions, “golden goodbyes” – it’s all there. Plus a list of all TfL staff who have earned £100,000 or more.
This year there were 2,217 who took home six-figure packages.
It’s a commendable exercise in transparency. But it's often also a hell of a story: the gift that keeps on giving (and not just to TfL execs). These are eye-popping, jealousy-inducing, jaw-dropping amounts of money.
This year was even more remarkable than normal: 78 employees earned £170,000 or more - above the reported £167,000 salary of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Do these TfL execs – most of them several steps from the front-line and almost entirely anonymous to the travelling public - deserve such largesse from the farepayer?
Pretty much every Londoner uses TfL services. Some of us even pay fares (that’s a joke, in more ways than one – do please keep up…).
It’s our money that mostly funds these six-figure salaries and bonuses. We all have a view – probably even the fare dodgers.
Of the 2,217 people who earned £100k or more, 536 had a base salary of at least £100,000 (up from 353 the in 2023/4). The bulk of the remainder boosted their pay by virtue of doing overtime.
Good for them, you might think. But overtime on what? Er, the Piccadilly line and the DLR. Both are in dire need of new fleets of trains that are embarrassingly delayed. So, some people are clocking up overtime bonuses on projects more deserving of a metaphorical boot up the backside?
Back in 2020/21, the number of TfL employees on £100k-plus was 455. The following year it rose to 597. It grew again to 766 in 2022/23, to 1,319 in 2023/24 and now to 2,217 (for the 2024/25 financial year).
What has the mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, who is also the chair of TfL, to say about it?
“TfL plays a critical role in keeping our city moving, with millions of Londoners and visitors using our transport network day in, day out, for commuting around the capital and leisure purposes,” his spokesman said, making no specific mention of the bonuses or salaries.
“The mayor is investing billions to improve our transport network as we continue to make our city greener, safer and even more inclusive for all.”
It was back in 2019 when The Standard first began drawing attention to the astonishing amounts of money being paid by TfL to its senior staff.
At the time, the Standard had revealed that departing executives had been paid more than £100m – £102.4m in fact – in two years. A total of 1,552 TfL staff had lost their jobs as part of a two-year reorganisation.
Many of the sums were down to lengthy notice periods. The mayor decided to act. Staff recruited to managing director posts had their notice period halved from a year to six months, while other new directors were limited to three months.
Scroll forward to 2022 and the new rules didn’t stop one executive departing with a whopping £626,000 pay-off.
At the time, TfL was fighting for its survival, having seen the pandemic cut passenger numbers to five per cent of “normal”.
The Tory government, which propped up TfL with about £5bn in bailouts, was highly critical of an executive pay culture that it said involved “unbelievable, tone-deaf sums of money”.
Even Sir Sadiq felt compelled to join in – though, like many other controversies, he sourced the problem back to the previous incumbent, Boris Johnson.
“The mayor understands that Londoners will be shocked by these figures and he has been clear with TfL that these one-off payments to departing TfL staff must be minimised,” his spokesman said.
So, who are the current crop of “fat cats”? TfL commissioner Andy Lord took home a total remuneration package of £639,164, almost £115,000 more than the previous year. But he’s a class act. TfL says that executives of Mr Lord’s stature earn £2m a year in the private sector.
Other names will be less familiar: chief capital officer Stuart Harvey (£423,583, including a £73,929 bonus), chief finance officer Rachel McLean (£437,454, including a £116,567 bonus), chief customer officer Alex Williams (£382,236, including a £50,400 bonus), chief people officer Fiona Brunskill (£377,654, including a £97,890 bonus) and chief operating officer Claire Mann (£307,206, no bonus – yet).
Many good people, yes – but are they that good?
And let’s not forget Tricia Wright, TfL’s former pensions review chief officer, who received £467,618, including £234,513 compensation for loss of office, making her the year’s second highest earner.
Yes, TfL does have a £9bn annual budget and employs more than 28,000 staff. Yes, it runs the London Underground and contracts out the operation of the Elizabeth line, the London Overground, the London bus network and the Ulez ultra-low emission zone. Yes, two years of annual pay rises somehow got wrapped into the 2024/5 financial year. Yes, £100,000 is no longer what it was five or six years ago.
TfL also argues that the number of its senior leaders has reduced since 2016 and that those crossing the £100,000 barrier this year work in operational areas.
But TfL’s headcount keeps on growing, when every other business in town seems to be shrinking – and it’s still some distance from returning to pre-pandemic passenger numbers.
Passenger anger and adverse headlines about these pay awards will dissipate. What is likely to be more damaging, though, is how this plays within the Department for Transport.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has already placed Sir Sadiq and TfL in shackles – with above-inflation fare rises on the cards until the end of the decade (in return for £2.2bn from the Chancellor).
Ms Alexander has to think of the national taxpayer, not the London farepayer, after all. But has she missed a trick? Isn’t it time to shackle the TfL bonus culture too?
Ross Lydall is City Hall Editor and Transport Editor at The Standard
