Olympic quango refuses to reveal chief’s bonus
Olympics chiefs have blocked a request to discover if any bonus was paid to Britain's highest-earning quango chief.
The Olympic Delivery Authority said it was not in the public interest to reveal now whether their chief executive David Higgins, who is paid £438,000 a year including pension contribution, received a further performance-related windfall last year.
The size of Mr Higgins's pay packet will probably remain unknown for another month even though the ODA published full remuneration details of its seven directors — who all earn more than the prime minister — two months ago.
It is thought spin doctors at the Olympic construction agency will try to avert a storm over public sector extravagance by declaring Mr Higgins's full pay after the party conference season and the Government's spending review.
Business Secretary Vince Cable thrust the issue of quango excess into the spotlight when he said on BBC's Question Time that some quangos' pay was "outrageously generous".
Mr Higgins's performance-related pay was not included in the ODA's accounts for 2009/10 published in July.
The ODA said this was because any windfall payment was at the time being negotiated with ministers at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
In a response to a Freedom of Information request on Mr Higgins's bonus, the ODA confirmed it held the information but would publish it "under controlled circumstances" to Parliament no later than the end of next month.
The ODA, with a £6 billion budget, has been told it is not exempt from cuts.
However, the Standard understands the DCMS hopes to persuade the Treasury to again limit these to three per cent of annual expenditure, which amounted last year to a cut of £27 million.
The ODA's annual accounts for 2009/10 revealed that seven ODA directors received average annual bonuses of £48,000 on top of packages worth between £257,000 and £372,000.
Olympics minister Hugh Robertson had already urged the ODA to take account of "prevailing economic conditions" when making pay awards.
In the 2008/09 financial year Mr Higgins was awarded a £210,000 bonus but chose to defer half of this until after his agency's work is completed
in 2012.
