600 TFL FAT CATS ON OVER £100,000 A YEAR

OUSTED DIRECTOR GETS £626,000... AS TAXPAYER SET TO FOOT £19m BAILOUT BILL

- Ross Lydall

ALMOST 600 executives at Transport for London earned more than £100,000 last year - including a record-breaking £626,000 to an ousted director, the Evening Standard can reveal.

The scale of the pay-outs, which came as TfL seeks a further £900 million taxpayer-funded bailout to cover running costs, was described by the Government as "unbelievable, tone-deaf sums of money". A total of 597 TfL and Crossrail staff earned six figures in 2021/22, compared with 455 in the prior financial year. This included £626,037 paid to Vernon Everitt, who left TfL in February after a boardroom shake-up that was meant to save cash.

Mr Everitt, who had worked for TfL for 14 years, received £352,697 for loss of office, a £200,294 salary and £71,180 bonus. It is believed to be the biggest amount of annual remuneration ever paid by TfL. The salaries and almost £1.6 million of  bonuses to 37 serving or departed executives were quietly approved on the day after the platinum jubilee bank holiday weekend, when London was hit by a 24-hour Tube strike called by the RMT union seeking to protect jobs and pensions.

The revelation will cause difficulties for Mayor Sadiq Khan as he tries to win a final bailout for TfL and a long-term capital funding deal to upgrade the Tube and bus network and repair roads and bridges. The Mayor has already proposed axing 22 bus routes and reducing frequencies on almost 60 more to save cash rather than cutting TfL pensions. He has threatened more severe cuts - including on the Tube - if the Department for Transport does not meet his demands.