Former Crossrail chief executive Andrew Wolstenholme challenged a decision to withhold part of his bonus just months before it was confirmed the project would bust its budget and miss its opening date.
The details are revealed in a London Assembly report into the “tarnished” scheme.
The report confirms that Wolstenholme was paid performance bonuses of £641,000 on top of his £940,000 in wages during the two years from 2016.
Wolstenholme and his executive team were also in-line for potential payouts under the scheme’s “Long Term Incentive Plan” (LTIP) which were measures against key programme milestones.
But delays meant executives were denied access to their LTIP pots in 2018 by the remuneration committee.
The report states: “The minutes note that this decision was based on the failure of these employees to meet their LTIP targets.
“The minutes also state that Crossrail executives “reluctantly accepted” non-payment of their retention bonuses.
“In fact, Andrew Wolstenholme wrote a letter to the Remuneration Committee requesting a review of their decision not to release his LTIP payment.
“This attitude is symptomatic of a culture that, while encouraging unchecked optimism, has also encouraged a denial of responsibility.”
Wolstenholme left Crossrail in March 2018 and since then it has been confirmed the project is £2.8bn over budget and will not be open until 2020 at the earliest.
The Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee, Caroline Pidgeon said: “It is a complete tragedy that one of the most highly anticipated engineering projects the world has ever seen has found itself in a mess of overspending, mismanagement and an embarrassingly long delay.
“Crossrail was supposed to be the beacon of modern 21st century engineering but its name is now tarnished with shame in the eyes of the London taxpayer who will have to foot the bill until its completion.
“It is shameful that nobody at a senior level is willing to take responsibility for the failure of the project thus far”
from Construction Enquirer http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2019/04/23/ex-crossrail-chief-wolstenholme-wanted-more-bonus-cash/
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