London
Saturday
03 July 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
KHOODEELAAR! is telling Boris Johnson to quit repeating Big Business propaganda and lies for the Big Biz agenda scam CRASSrail. We are also telling the back room controllers of Boris Johnson's careerist propaganda operations that Crossrail will come to sink a big part of Boris' 'credibility', or , to be accurate, a big part of Boris Johnson’s 'claim to credibility'. Why? Because CROSSRAIL is crass. Because the utter, the overwhelming majority of its peddlers, backers and tellers of untruth and they are as ignorant about the economy as they are of the needs for proper transport facilities and services, provisions, deliveries both in London and in other parts of Britain.
[To be continued]
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23851980-six-figure-salaries-treble-in-one-year-at-crossrail.do
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The number of six-figure salaries at Crossrail has almost trebled in a year and its chief executive has become the biggest earner within the Transport for London empire.
Rob Holden took home £554,495 in pay and benefits, more than £160,000 above the pay package received by TfL commissioner Peter Hendy, who has refused to take his £132,409 bonus.
The number of staff earning £100,000 or more at Crossrail — the long-delayed £15.9 billion project that is not due to be completed for seven years — has risen from eight to 23.
Crossrail, a subsidiary of TfL, is facing an anxious wait to see if it is targeted as the Government imposes major cuts across Whitehall.
Before the election, Chancellor George Osborne refused to safeguard it from cuts, saying he wanted to have a close look at the books.
The Transport Department is contributing £5.1 billion to the project and Network Railis paying £2.3 billion, while the Mayor and TfL are providing £7.7 billion, of which £3.5 billion comes from an extra levy on business rates.
Mr Holden joined Crossrail in April last year after successfully overseeing the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to St Pancras. Neither he nor Crossrail chairman Terry Morgan, who earned £209,598, received a bonus.
A Crossrail spokesman said the organisation, which is also funded by the City of London Corporation, BAA and the Canary Wharf Group, had to pay market rates for the best staff.
He said: “The scale of the operation has gone from birth through adolescence and into the state of adulthood. To do that, and to meet the very challenging targets that Crossrail has been set, we have got to find the best resources available in terms of infrastructure and leadership. We are competing directly with the private sector for project management expertise. If we don't compete and don't get the resources we need, the project won't be completed on time and to budget.”
TfL appoints only one member of Crossrail's independent board and does not control its salary structure, except the pay of the chairman. Mr Hendy declined to comment directly on Mr Holden's earnings but said it was right the public sector directly employed the best available people rather than having to rely on consultants.
Mr Hendy said: “It's probably the biggest construction project in the world, certainly in Europe, and it ought not to be a surprise that we have got to recruit people with sufficient calibre... and the experience and clout to manage it.
“If we didn't have these people, the likelihood is that we would be having consultants — whose salaries you wouldn't see.” The figures emerge in TfL's annual accounts for the financial year 2009/10, which detail in full for the first time the names, positions and earnings of those on £150,000 or more.
A DfT spokesman said: “Crossrail Limited is a 100 per cent subsidiary of the Transport for London Group. As such the salary and bonuses paid to the executive and non-executive directors are a matter for the Mayor.”
Crossrail will run from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east, linking Oxford Street, the City and Canary Wharf via twin underground tunnels through central London. It is intended to boost rail capacity by 10 per cent and ease crowding on the Central line.
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Reader views (6)
As someone who truly knows believe me you would be amazed if you knew the base salary of many of the people in CrossRail and TfL, the specialists rail and transport designers are worth their premium as they are sought all over the world but the back office functional staff are grossly overpaid 9-5 ers, just stand outside the building at 5 you will get killed in the rush and the concept of working in the evening or taking work home - not on your life
- Commuter, London, 03/07/2010 13:53
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- Commuter, London, 03/07/2010 13:53
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Somebody has to step in here and stop this legalised robbery,surely there is somebody with a backbone,who has been voted in!!!!
- Davey_buoy, Chertsey, 02/07/2010 17:32
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- Davey_buoy, Chertsey, 02/07/2010 17:32
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Terry, the wages paid to some of the people working on it may be absurd, (as may the cost of the project and length of time it's taking) but why is the line itself a white elephant?
It's a hugely necessary increase and improvement to the tube's infrastructure.
- John T, London, 02/07/2010 15:04
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It's a hugely necessary increase and improvement to the tube's infrastructure.
- John T, London, 02/07/2010 15:04
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scrap it--a white elephant in the making. boris do it!!!!!!
- terry sullivan, morden england, 02/07/2010 14:14
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- terry sullivan, morden england, 02/07/2010 14:14
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I suspect that the amount they've spent farting about on this project, so far, could have paid for and built one or two tube lines by now.
The Piccadilly, Bakerloo and Northern line middle sections were all built within about 5 years. Without any huge machines, or modern technology.
Progress eh?
- Alex Mckenna, South Woodford, 02/07/2010 13:04
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The Piccadilly, Bakerloo and Northern line middle sections were all built within about 5 years. Without any huge machines, or modern technology.
Progress eh?
- Alex Mckenna, South Woodford, 02/07/2010 13:04
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Mr Hendy needs to explain why they are paying senior management six figure salaries AND employing so many consultants to manage the project!
Two delivery partner (management) contracts were awarded by TfL during the recession for £500m when all those consultants had no other work in the UK and could have been employed directly for one third of the cost to we taxpayers.
With PPP falures and over spending on projects like CrossRail, TfL are in danger of rivaling some of the banks in terms of putting taxpayers money at risk.
Two delivery partner (management) contracts were awarded by TfL during the recession for £500m when all those consultants had no other work in the UK and could have been employed directly for one third of the cost to we taxpayers.
With PPP falures and over spending on projects like CrossRail, TfL are in danger of rivaling some of the banks in terms of putting taxpayers money at risk.
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