Bosses clinging on to jobs at Advantage West Midlands

Doomed quango Advantage West Midlands is still employing 19 directors at a cost of around £1.5 million a year, it has been revealed.

None of its top bosses have taken a voluntary redundancy package offered to staff. It means there is currently one director for every 15 workers still employed at the development agency, which is targeted to be shut down by the Government by the end of March 2012.

AWM's voluntary redundancy scheme has seen 45 people leave the Aston Science Park-based organisation, leaving 281 people on the payroll.

The only director to leave this year is deputy chief executive Richard Hutchins, who resigned to take up a job as a director of Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick.

AWM chief executive Mick Laverty is on £145,706 a year. The organisation has not disclosed the individual earnings of the rest of its directors, but the four corporate directors are on a package of between £110,121 to £112,121.

There are 14 other directors, one of whom is on a salary range of £68,151 to £85,188, with the other 13 in the salary range of £61,955 to £77,444.