Royal Mail has been heavily criticised after admitting it more than doubled payments into the gold-plated pension pot of its chief executive, Adam Crozier.

It revealed that multi-millionaire Mr Crozier received around £3.million in pay, bonuses and pension contributions last year alone.

But there was anger last night that a taxpayer-owned organisation was allowed to pay out such huge sums to someone who is effectively a civil servant.

Figures from Royal Mail’s accounts make clear that it has found millions of pounds to plug a gap in the pension schemes of executives, including Mr Crozier, while neglecting ordinary workers.

While Royal Mail put an extra £6million from its profits into its executive pension scheme last year, postmen’s pension schemes were left with a black hole approaching £9billion.

The news drew furious condemnation from MPs and the Communication Workers Union, which accused Royal Mail of double standards. It also drew comparisons to disgraced former Royal Bank of Scotland boss, Sir Fred Goodwin, who is collecting a pension of £700,000 a year, despite overseeing a record corporate loss of £24billion.

The revelation is also likely to add to the mounting controversy within the Labour leadership over plans by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to part-privatise the postal service.

The extra £6million placed into Royal Mail’s executive pension scheme last year – double the figure for 2007 – was achieved by increasing its employer’s contribution from 20.9 per cent of pay to a staggering 48.2 per cent. At the same time, the company decided to maintain its contribution to the pension scheme of ordinary postmen at a much lower 20 per cent of pay.

The Royal Mail’s accounts show Mr Crozier was paid £843,000 last year, plus a separate payment of £1,993,000 from a long-term incentive plan payment – a total of £2.83million.

The cost of the main workers' pension scheme will be shifted to taxpayers under plans to part-privatise Royal Mail.

On top of this, the firm paid more than £400,000 into his final salary pension scheme and a further £208,000 separate cash fee top-up. The cash transfer value of Mr Crozier’s pension pot is around £1.2million – suggesting he received up to £3.5million in pay, bonuses and pension contributions last year.

Kevin Slocombe, C W U spokesman, said: ‘Adam Crozier is set up for life on the back of a salary and gold-plated pension worth well over £3million last year. ‘He is not quite the same as Fred Goodwin but he is on his way. It is a very different situation for our members, where the company is not putting in the same amount of money to protect their pensions.’

A spokesman for trade union Unite last night described the deal as ‘immoral’.
‘They are rewarding themselves for failure,’ he added. ‘This comes at a time when they are cutting jobs and pensions and closing post offices.’ Under the proposals to part-privatise the Royal Mail, the cost of funding the main pension scheme will be shifted on to the taxpayer.

Labour MP Jon Cruddas said last night: ‘This reeks of double standards. They have hoovered up cash into their own scheme while skimping when it comes to the postal workers’ scheme. It isn’t right.’