NETWORK Rail directors will receive no bonuses this year, the company has announced. The level of their bonuses had attracted widespread criticism in recent years, although former chief executive Iain Coucher steadfastly denied that the issue had contributed to his decision to resign last year.

Mr Coucher said he stepped down because negotiations for a new Control Period were about to start, and that if he did not go then he would feel obliged to stay for another five years.

His replacement, former Olympic Delivery Authority chief executive David Higgins, took over at the start of February, and quickly made it clear that he intended to bring costs under control.

He immediately abolished the two chauffeur-driven cars which had been available to directors, and has announced a programme of devolution, under which route directors will be running their own business units with separate accounts and procurement policies. The first two routes to be converted, in April, will be Wessex and Scotland.

He is also reducing the layers of bureaucracy, which had meant that some purchasing decisions had passed through the hands of more than a dozen people before being approved.

“We have 55 different types of points. Do we really need that many?” he asked earlier this week, going on to emphasise that his priorities would be ‘transparency and accountability’.

The decision to reform the bonus system rests officially with Network Rail’s remuneration committee, whose chairman Steve Russell said: “Last year, the board suspended the management incentive framework for executive directors and after a comprehensive review, will shortly be proposing to members a radically different approach to incentivisation from 2011/12 onwards, including transitional arrangements to the new scheme.

“There remained only the question of the basis on which any 2010-11 annual bonus should be awarded. In a decision reached jointly by the remuneration committee and the executive directors, no consideration will be given to any such annual award mechanism and thus no payments will be made. All recognise that the public expect consistently high network reliability and overall service delivery within a strong safety culture before the top leadership of the company should become eligible for payment under any annual incentive scheme.”

Bonuses for other employees will continue, but Mr Russell said they would be based on ‘challenging targets’.