Because he's worth it?

I am willing to guess that I have few if any readers earning £3,500 per day. However that is what I read Bob Kiley is currently earning. Bob Kiley is the Transport Commissioner appointed by Ken Livingstone in 2001 to run London's transport system. His initial salary was set at $4million for a four year contract. In December 2004 he received a four year extension to his contract at an increased salary of £2.4million over the term of the contract. This amount is disputed by the Tax Payers Alliance who list his salary for 2005/06 as £1,146,425. At the beginning of 2006 he stood down as Transport Commissioner in return for a severance payment of £745,000 plus a two year consultancy agreement worth £787,500 for 90 days work a year. Sounds a lot of money, well it is a daily rate three times that of when he was employed, but there's more... He is also being allowed to live rent free in the £2.1million house purchased for him under Ken Livingstone's instructions in 2001, that's worth around £13,000 a month for a total of eight years (a total of £1,248,000). Surely at those salary levels he could afford to rent his own house, most Londoners don't have a house paid for as well as having a salary, especially if they are only working 90 days a year.

Surely Bob Kiley must be working his socks off for that money; it appears not. Bob Kiley admitted to the Evening Standard recently that "If you ask me what I actually do to earn my consultancy, I'd have to tell you, in all honesty, not much."

Will Ken Livingstone explain what is going on? It appears that "The London Assembly has called for an independent watchdog to investigate the salary of London's former Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley. The London Assembly passed a motion referring the matter of Mr Kiley's employment to the Audit Commission."
You can read more about this motion here.