Graham Sutherland’s payout from First Group is nearly double his annual salary after his performance targets for the year included ensuring the billion-pound company made ‘progress’ on diversity
The boss of Britain’s biggest transport company is being awarded an £800,000 bonus as train cancellations soar.
Graham Sutherland’s performance-related payout from First Group is nearly double his annual salary. It comes despite the firm’s three rail companies cancelling tens of thousands of trains over the last year.
His performance targets for the year included ensuring the billion-pound company made “progress” on diversity. Mr Sutherland is in line to receive the £800,000 bonus on top of his salary of £567,000, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
His total pay packet for this year including pension contributions and other benefits totals £1.4million. But around 61,000 trains were partially or fully cancelled across Avanti, South Western Railway and Great Western Railway in the past year.
That is an increase of a fifth compared with the 12 months immediately before Covid pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020. First Group said many of the delays and cancellations were as a result of bad weather and problems with rail infrastructure. Louise Haigh, the new Transport Secretary, said Labour will “deliver the biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation”.
She added: “We won’t stand by and watch … failing rail firms cash in on passenger misery. That’s why we’ll be setting out plans to bring rail franchises back into public ownership.”
