Foster: Bank watchdogs paid £25m in bonus bonanza

Mon, 01 Jun 2009

Government regulators paid out £25m in bonuses to staff last year despite serious problems in many of the areas they regulate. £5½m of the bonuses went to executives earning over £100,000, according to figures revealed to the Liberal Democrats.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that:

• The FSA paid £19.7m in bonuses to staff last year, with £4m of that going to executives earning over £100,000 - despite the bank crisis
• Ofcom paid its execs an average bonus of £16,667 - despite failing to prevent thousands of consumers losing money in the TV quiz phone-in scandal
• Ofgem paid its execs an average bonus of £15,250 each - despite large increases in gas and electricity prices
• The top bonus paid out at the FSA was £90,000 - the highest paid at Ofcom was £56,400
• The average bonus paid to regulator executives was £19,100 - the average for other staff was £4,107

Commenting Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don Foster said:

"We all accept the need to attract top-quality workers to the public sector but in some cases it appears these bonuses have been paid out despite serious failings."

"This government offered hard working teachers and nurses below inflation pay deals while doing nothing to curb regulator executives earning five figure bonuses."

"The size of some of these pay outs would be hard to justify at the best of times, but it looks especially bad in the current economic climate."

"Regulators must now follow the lead of those in the rest of the public sector who have promised to freeze executive pay."

Table 1: Breakdown of bonuses for the Financial Services Authority, Ofcom, Ofgem, The Pensions Regulator, Ofwat, the Office of Fair Trading, Postcomm, the Civil Aviation Authority, and the Office of Rail Regulation.

Regulator	Number of Staff	Amount paid in bonuses to staff in total	Average staff bonus	Number of Employees on salaries over £100,000	Proportion of total staff earning over £100,000	Amount paid in bonuses to staff on salaries over £100,000	Average bonus paid to saff on salaries over £100,000	Highest bonus paid
TPR	328	£321,531	£980	12	4%	£76,577	£6,381	£28,512
Ofcom	810	£1,974,280	£2,437	48	6%	£800,000	£16,667	£56,400
Ofgem	302	£404,199	£1,338	10	3%	£152,500	£15,250
Ofwat	193	£55,000	£285	4	2%	£30,000	£7,500	£20,000
OFT	700	£564,418	£806	11	2%	£77,107	£7,010	£16,414
Postcomm	>66	£175,167	£2,654	1	2%	£8,246	£8,246
CAA	962	£1,797,211	£1,868	24	2%	£430,170	£17,924
ORR	345	£449,787	£1,304	6	2%	£55,000	£9,167
FSA	2,489	£19,700,000	£7,915	174	7%	£3,912,380	£22,485	£90,000
Total	6195	£25,441,593	£4,107	290	5%	£5,541,980	£19,110

Source: All information was received from Freedom of Information responses.