Ousted Jarvis chiefs got £1m pay-off

Jarvis, the embattled PFI contractor which nearly went under this summer, awarded pay-offs totalling more than £1m to ousted directors last year.

Jarvis, the embattled PFI contractor which nearly went under this summer, awarded pay-offs totalling more than £1m to ousted directors last year.

The company's report and accounts, published yesterday, also show that six of its directors received retrospective "performance" bonuses worth more than £800,000 for the previous year to April 2003, the period covering the Potters Bar rail crash when seven people died after a train was derailed by a faulty set of points maintained by Jarvis.

Paris Moayedi, the company's former chairman, received a pay-off worth £565,400 plus a £19,500 contribution to his pension after he was ousted in November last year and replaced by Steve Norris, the unsuccessful Tory candidate for London Mayor.

Anthony Cunningham, who was removed from his job as head of Jarvis's rail division in March received a severance package totalling £412,000. Andrew Sutton, the head of the group's accommodation services division, which handled most of Jarvis's PFI contracts, received a £160,000 pay-off.

A £170m write-off on loss-making school refurbishment projects undertaken by the accommodation services division earlier this year, nearly caused the collapse of Jarvis. Shares in the company have fallen 88 per cent in the past 12 months.

The retrospective bonuses paid out for the year to April, 2003 amounted to £820,000. Jarvis did not declare them when it published its report and accounts in July last year, because it had not decided whether the Potters Bar crash in May, 2002 called into question the performance of its directors.

A Jarvis spokesman said the bonus payments had subsequently been approved after "no evidence was produced of systematic management failure in respect of the accident".

Mr Norris, who took over as interim chairman in October, 2003 and was appointed to the post on a permanent basis in May, received £77,000.