Tube boss's £17,000 bonus despite missing his targets

The chairman of London Underground has received a £17,000 bonus despite admitting on Thursday that he has failed to meet any targets for safety and customer satisfaction and that the service is getting worse.

Derek Smith conceded that management has not delivered the seven objectives set by the Government for cleanliness of trains and stations, provision of information to passengers, helpfulness of staff and punctuality.

Despite this record Mr Smith pocketed a total of £229,000 including the bonus last year, according to London Underground's annual report published yesterday.

Mr Smith said that one of the reasons for the poor customer satisfaction ratings was the continued criticism by the Press of the public-private partnership (PPP) which is due to take over the system at the end of the year. Under the scheme Mr Smith, the network's chairman and managing director, will be responsible for running the trains while private companies will look after the infrastructure.

The report revealed that in the year to April, 8.4 per cent of trains failed to turn up, some 2.7 percentage points worse than the year before. "While this was partly as a result of strike action, which severely limited services on two days, the Underground recognises that reliability in some areas has fallen below acceptable levels," Mr Smith said.

He said the number of train-miles run was greater than the previous year, but it was below the target set by the Government. Another 150 train drivers were being recruited to help boost services on the ageing network. However, the volume of passengers rose to record levels, up 4.7 per cent to 970 million.

Mick Rix, leader of the train drivers' union Aslef, said the report "vividly illustrated the disintegration" of the Tube system under its present management. He pointed out that a "shadow" version of PPP had been in place for most of the year. He said it showed the urgent need to hand London Underground over to Bob Kiley, the London transport commissioner appointed by the mayor Ken Livingstone.

Bob Crow, assistant general secretary of RMT, the biggest union on the network, said: "This shows that the management which is hell-bent on pursuing the PPP does not know what it is doing."

Transport minister John Spellar said: "We know there are problems on the Tube. We need to reverse years of under-investment and that is precisely why we are proceeding with our investment plans for a publicly run, privately built 21st century Tube."

A spokesman for the Tube said that the £17,000 bonus related to the previous year when services were slightly better than they are now.