Proactive Bulwarks

A pledge by the directors of Network Rail to waive their annual bonuses has acquired a definite whiff of cleggery. The chair of the remuneration committee has sent a letter to the consumers' watchdog, urging them to endorse a salary rise, a long-term bonus scheme and a £300,000-apiece "proactive bulwark" to prevent desertions. There is, it appears, "a still very active international market" among people who want their trains delayed, their staff disgruntled and their networks run into the ground. The urging has apparently come about because everybody involved believes in performance-related pay: "For too long we've seen rewards paid out for failure, and we're not in that business," said a spokesbeing. "Unlike the banks, you don't have massive, perverse incentives for short-term gain." Instead, rail directors are proactively bulwarked for no gain at all, presumably in the hope that market forces and the goodness of their hearts may result in some show of efficiency a few years hence.