SCOTLAND’S only municipal bus firm Lothian Buses is to have two new executive directors following a unanimous decision yesterday by its largest shareholder the City of Edinburgh Council.
Nigel Serafini, currently Lothian Buses’ head of commercial, will become commercial director and Sarah Boyd, currently head of operations, will become operations director.
Boyd will take up her post after January while Serafini will become commercial director from next week.
Lothian Buses currently has three executive directors, namely Richard Hall, managing director, Bill Devlin, engineering director, and Norman Strachan, finance director.
Following considerable upheaval within the company over the past few years, Devlin and Strachan will be leaving the business in January.
An officials’ report to the council yesterday stated: “To ensure good governance and maintain operating capability, Lothian Buses requires to appoint two executive directors to replace them. The appointments of executive directors will be effected upon the resignations of Bill Devlin and Norman Strachan respectively, to maintain the requisite minimum three executive directors.”
As part of the new structure, a fourth executive director, a finance director, will be sought for the business.
There had been anger on the part of some councillors and residents of Edinburgh over the high salaries and bonuses paid to the company’s executive directors – at least one was on more than £200,000 per year – but the new directors’ salaries will be “benchmarked” against the rest of the industry, according to council leader Andrew Burns.
The report stated: “As at January 2015, the top level managerial structure of Lothian Buses had 14 staff, with a total remuneration of £1.74 million. As part of a planned restructure of the management team, it is proposed that the new senior structure will have a total remuneration of £1.31m, a reduction of £430k. This will mostly be achieved through the removal of bonus payments for staff and recruiting successors at lower salary levels.”
Cllr Burns said: “It is an end to the bonus culture.”
The posts were assessed in post by Lothian Buses’ chair and interim general manager Jim McFarlane.
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