If it’s bonuses for some, then why not bonuses all round?

Published: 4 March, 2011

• IT does seem absurd that housing officers and staff of CityWest Homes should get extra bonuses for meeting targets that they should meet under their contractual obligations in taking situations and doing that job under the salary and conditions advertised (‘Bonuses for refusing home repairs’, February 18). 

Therefore £600,000 of presumably rent derived from Westminster City Council lettings is not going into building new homes etc, while supported charities are closing down, diminishing services in other much-needed sectors in Westminster.  

If so, then why doesn’t everyone from roadsweepers to libraries and every other service provided by the council not get the same bonuses?  

People are already outraged by the banking bonuses and the mess they got us into, yet here we are with a particular organisation within the council’s remit and a local government concern – I repeat: a local government concern – receiving substantial bonuses for doing what they are supposed to do.  

When did bonus culture stray into local government, especially at this time of pay freezes, and roaring inflation?

“We are all in it together” – a soundbite that means zilch. 

Nonplussed – 

JAMES QUINN (council tenant), Westbourne Park Road, W2