Former ScotRail operator Abellio paid its managing director £739,653 in 2021 after receiving £850million in pandemic subsidies from the Scottish Government.
The huge sum was paid to businessman Dominic Booth – a £143,000 increase on the previous year – for running the UK arm of the Dutch Government-owned firm.
Accounts published earlier this month show Abellio Transport Holdings Limited – which owned Abellio ScotRail – also paid an £8.6million dividend to its parent company Abellio Holdings Ltd.
ScotRail services were taken into public hands in April last year after years of late trains, cancellations and passenger failings.
However, that came after the Scottish Government provided massive taxpayer-funded support to Abellio to keep trains running over the pandemic when passenger numbers were almost zero due to lockdown.
Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson said: “These are whopping payouts and people will be entitled to wonder whether they were deserved, given the even more eye-watering sums the firm received in government subsidies.”
Scottish Lib Dem transport spokesperson Jill Reilly said: “The public will be glad that vast sums of money are no longer flowing to foreign shareholders but the most important thing is that Scotland’s rail passengers get a reliable and frequent service.
"In the first six months since ScotRail was nationalised, it spent £400,000 on compensation to travellers for delayed trains.”
MSP Neil Bibby said: “This is the reason Labour and the trade unions dragged the SNP to take ScotRail into public ownership.
"The idea Scottish taxpayers are paying money to another country’s government for our rail system is laughable. Now we have to deliver a real people’s railway. That means an affordable, reliable service, not cuts to routes and ticket office closures.”
Abellio was stripped of its £6billion ScotRail franchise amid criticism of its performance, delays and soaring ticket prices. But the company still operates services in England and has retained some functions in
Scotland, supplying replacement buses, providing customer services, managing station tenancies and delivering payroll services.
Abellio said: “Directors’ remuneration is in line with other businesses in the public transport industry of a similar size to Abellio UK and varies year on year based on UK business performance.”
The firm insisted the salary was not paid directly by ScotRail but rather its parent company and it was based on the performance of the wider Abellio group.
A spokesman added: “ScotRail has always required a public subsidy and the Government decided to increase this during the pandemic to continue to provide rail services for key workers in Scotland. Even after this subsidy, Abellio ScotRail made a significant loss in the financial year ended March 2021.
"Abellio ScotRail has never made a dividend payment to its shareholder, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, in the company’s history.”
Abellio Transport Holdings Limited made a loss of £5million in the financial year ending December 31, 2021. The firm said it paid an £8.6million dividend to its UK holding company Abellio Transport Group to stem its losses.
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