POST CHIEF’S £3.7m BONANZA
Gargantuan pay packet slammed as a ‘slap in the face’ for workers
STRUGGLING sub-postmasters and MPs last night attacked the bumper pay packet awarded to the Post Office chief executive who quit amid a growing branch closure crisis.
Paula Vennells, 60, received over £3.7million in six years, including salary, bonuses, cash in lieu of pension and benefits.
Her total pay jumped seven per cent last year to £720,000 – nearly five times Prime Minister Theresa May’s £150,402 salary.
The married mother- of-two, who is also an ordained Church of England priest, was awarded two hefty bonuses totalling £390,000 on top of her £255,000 base salary. By contrast, most of the sub-postmasters who run local post offices take home less than the minimum wage per hour for it.
Mrs Vennells’ attempts to prevent post office closures were ‘an unmitigated disaster’ and the network is now ‘looking over the precipice’, MPs were told this week.
Up to 2,500 local branches could close or downsize in the next 12 months, the National Federation of Sub- Postmasters warned. Last night MPs expressed their anger that Mrs Vennells’ ‘ballooning’ pay packet was signed off by the Government, which owns Post Office Ltd.
Pete Kyle, a Labour MP who saw his local post office in Hove, East Sussex, close last year despite the protests of 5,000 residents, said: ‘At a time when people are experiencing post office closures, having a chief executive paid five time more than the Prime Minister is a slap in the face. The Post Office should be known as one of the most reliable parts of our community, not for botched reforms and the poor performance of senior managers.’
Stephen Kerr, a Conservative MP and member of the Commons business committee, said: ‘I would call for managers’ pay to be reined in while sub-postmasters are handed a lifeline to pay them fairly for the vital service they provide to our communities.’
Sally Bourton, 55, a postmaster of 19 years from Cornwall, added: ‘Vennells made the Post Office profitable by slashing the rates that we get.
‘Postmasters like myself... are losing money but keeping the network alive. We are keeping the post office going because we feel duty-bound, meanwhile the ones at top get bonuses. It is just so wrong.’ Many sub- postmasters were furious when Mrs Vennells was handed a CBE in this year’s New Years Honours list. Jo Hamilton, who used to run South Warnborough post office in Hampshire, said it was ‘sickening’ and met with ‘utter incredulity’ by colleagues.
Mrs Vennells resigned in February, days before a damning court verdict ruling the Post Office had falsely accused dozens of subpostmasters of theft.
The businesswoman was educated at Manchester High School for Girls, a private school where fees are now £35,600 per year and now lives near Bedford with her husband John in a sprawling Grade II-listed countryside pile. Their sons were educated at independent boarding school Bedford School, where fees are £31,000 per year and she is now a governor.
Mrs Vennells was born to an industrial chemist father and bookkeeper mother, and studied languages at Bradford University.
She worked for well-known companies including Unilever and L’Oreal before joining the Post Office as group network director in 2007, becoming chief executive in 2012. She has quit the Post Office to take up a part-time job as chairman of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, earning £60,000 a year.
While she was chief executive, the Post Office went from losing £120million a year to making a profit – but critics claim this was at the expense of sub-postmasters’ incomes, which she drastically cut during her tenure.
Her successor, Alisdair Cameron’s salary will be published in this year’s annual report in October.
Mrs Vennells and the Post Office did not respond to requests for comment.