Boss of troubled Southern rail receives £495,000 pay packet
The CEO of Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), the parent company of widely criticised network Southern rail, was paid £495,000 ($614,889) last year. Charles Horton’s pay remained stable despite Southern being ranked the worst rail network in the UK last year and GTR reporting a pre-tax loss of over £15m. In 2016, nearly a third of Southern’s trains were late. The network also experienced ongoing strike action and cancellations. David Brown, CEO of Go-Ahead, the passenger company which holds GTR, declined a bonus and pay increase last September due to the problems experienced by Southern.
The man in charge of Southern rail, the train network that has become synonymous with delays, cancellations and strike action, was paid £495,000 last year.

The deal awarded to Charles Horton, chief executive of Southern’s parent firm Govia Thameslink (GTR), drew fire from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport workers (RMT) and the Labour party.

Horton was paid £478,000 by GTR and also received a further £17,000 in pay from a former division of the group, Southern Railway Limited, taking his total to nearly half a million pounds.

In the previous year, due to a rearrangement of the company’s corporate structure, he was paid by both Southern and GTR, earning a total of £493,000.

Horton’s pay remained broadly flat despite a year of misery for 300,000 passengers on the Southern network, which was ranked the worst in Britain last summer.

Nearly a third of its trains were late in 2016 as it wrestled with a prolonged labour dispute that descended into ongoing strike action, as unions battled planned changes to the role of conductors.



Horton was awarded the pay packet despite Govia Thameslink reporting a pre-tax loss of more than £15m on turnover of £1.1bn for the year ending 2 July 2016, according to accounts filed at Companies House.

A spokesman for the RMT lashed out at what he called “telephone number pay” that “shows a real sense of twisted priorities”.

“On one hand, senior management are scooping up huge sums of money, whilst on the other hand, the guards are being systematically undermined and set up for abuse for having the audacity to fight for passenger safety,” the spokesman said.

“You’ve got 400 guards on Southern Rail who have been fighting for a year for passenger safety and have had nothing but abuse and threats from the company. Back in the boardroom it’s help yourself, line your pockets.”

Andy McDonald, Labour’s transport spokesman, said the pay deal strengthened the party’s argument for renationalisation of the railways.

“With season ticket prices shooting up at a rate way above the average increase in earnings, those at the top of Southern’s parent company, Govia Thameslink, clearly have no shame in dishing out extraordinarily large pay packages to themselves,” he said. “The audacity with which train operating companies are extracting value from our railways is quite astonishing.

“A Labour government would bring the railways into public ownership as franchising agreements lapsed, a policy which has wide support right across the country. Accordingly, under Labour the railways would be run in the public sector, in the best interests of taxpayers and passengers alike.”

David Brown, the chief executive of Go-Ahead, the parent company of Govia Thameslink, refused an annual bonus and pay increase in September given the disruption on the network.

Go-Ahead’s annual report states: “The directors’ remuneration policy is designed to reflect the group’s performance, with elements of remuneration linked to our strategic priorities, particularly health and safety, customer satisfaction, and operating profit and cashflow.”



Southern Rail said that it ran 95% of services on time during the latest RMT strike on Saturday, after 55% of conductors and “on-board supervisors” showed up for work.

GTR, which also owns Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express, declined to comment on pay.