Remploy's bonus bonanza blasted

By Sunil Peck

Unions and disabled people have condemned bonuses paid to Remploy managers and directors as “obscene”, in view of their allegation that thousands of disabled people are no longer in work, following the closure of factories by the employer.

In the year 2007-8, 325 of Remploy's 500 "senior managers" shared more than £1.6m in bonuses.

During the same period, Remploy implemented a plan of factory closures involving 29 of its 83 factories on the grounds that they were not cost effective.

It has also published plans that it says would allow it to support 20,000 disabled people a year getting into mainstream employment
by 2012.

The bonus payments were revealed by Minister for Disabled People Jonathan Shaw in response to a written question in the Commons asked by Madeleine Moon, MP for Bridgend.

A Remploy spokeswoman has also told Disability Now that four directors shared bonuses totalling more than £110,000, an average payment of around £27,500 each.

Remploy defended the bonuses, saying they were performance-related and needed to attract and retain the best staff in a competitive and commercial climate.

Remploy’s spokeswoman added: “The number of managers in Employment Services has increased, reflecting the fact that the number of disabled people Remploy has supported into work has trebled over the last three years.”

But Les Woodward, National Convener of the Remploy Trades Union Consortium, said that he was “absolutely disgusted” by the bonuses.

He added: “It’s just obscene. The best part of 2,000 disabled people have lost their jobs and a lot of the disabled people who took voluntary redundancy have spent their money. They are going through the financial hardship that we said they’d go through.”

Commenting on the bonuses, Julie Newman, Chair of the UKDPC said: “It worries me to see the growth of industries [that were] created to support independent living for disabled people increase in size to a point where they can award their managers bonuses.”

Madeleine Moon added: “My concern with Remploy is that we don’t end up with a situation where Remploy becomes top heavy and top expensive in terms of management and becomes unviable as a company.”

She vowed to ask the Government to look again at the level of bonus payments paid to Remploy managers and directors.

A spokesman from the Department for Work & Pensions said that the Government sets Remploy “stretching targets” that its managers must meet to receive bonuses.

He added that Remploy had found work for over 6,500 disabled people last year.