Whitehall staff in £15m bonus bonanza as three government departments dish out rewards

A bonus bonanza at three leading government departments has cost the British taxpayer more than £15 million in one year.

More than £6.5 million worth of cash bonuses were dished out to Home Office staff alone, a 44.9% increase on last year’s perks.

The revelation today sparks fury, with MP Keith Vaz accusing the department of “rewarding failure”.

One high ranking Home Office official, who already pockets more than £210,000 a year, received a £10,000 bonus two years running, a 4.8% salary bonus.

The “bonus bonanza” bonanza was doled out for performance, despite the department being accused of “staggering incompetence” by Labour after bumbling staff accidentally published the names of 1,600 illegal immigrants on their website.

At the Foreign Office workers received £6.7million in bonuses and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shelled out more than £2.2million to staff.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information act shows 11,672 performance-related bonuses were awarded to staff in 2012/13 by the Home Office.

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The figure is equivalent to 40% of all staff cashing in, although individual members of staff can receive more than one bonus in a year.

Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “The last thing the Home Office should do is waste taxpayers’ money on a bonus bonanza for staff. Bonuses for mandarins should be axed at a time when the families paying for them are struggling to make ends meet.

Civil servants at Vince Cable’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) brought home more than £2.2 million, a 39.8% rise on last year’s bonus pot of just over £1.6m.

The top 25% of Home Office ‘performers’ can get a bonus of up to £10,000 if they lie in the highest pay band, with 40% of all staff taking home an extra cheque.

Home Secretary Theresa May claims in the Home Office’s annual report that she “must also make sure that my department uses taxpayers’ money wisely”.

But Mr Vaz MP, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has slammed the figures, saying “there must not be a culture of rewarding failure”.

He said: “It is totally unacceptable that the Home Office has continued to pay big bonuses despite presiding over a backlog of half a million immigration cases.”

“The Home Affairs Committee has repeatedly recommended that no bonuses be paid until the backlog of cases is substantially reduced.

“I will write to the Permanent Secretary Mark Sedwill to ask him why these bonuses have been paid.”

Lord Taylor of Holbeach also pocketed £4,200 in Home Office perks this year, on top of his lavish £59,000 salary, despite only serving for part of the year.

The Tory peer’s equivalent annual salary is a staggering £105,000.

Stats also reveal the highest paid staff receive more than £220,000 a year, 6.8 times higher than the department’s average wage.

An eye-watering £17,500 bonus was given to one Foreign Office employee, a 29.6% increase in last year’s biggest payout.

The Foreign Office was the only department of the three to cut its bonus payments overall - from more than £7.4m for 2011/12 to just over £6.6m in 2012/13.

The news comes after George Osborne’s Autumn Statement announced fresh cuts for the welfare sector, totalling £3 billion.

This is not the first time the Home Office has found themselves involved in bonus controversy.

Last year, they were slammed for paying UK Border Agency staff £3.5million in bonuses, despite huge failings in airport inspections.

A Home Office spokesperson defended the bonuses however, insisting: “We believe it is important to reward staff who make exceptional contributions to the work of the Home Office.

“Those who do so are eligible for special one-off payments - the majority of staff given payments during 2012/13 (year of the Olympic and Paralympic games) received less than £500.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said: “Performance awards for staff are only paid to reward excellence to recognise and incentivise those responsible for delivering high quality public services. Awards are set against pre-determined objectives and are entirely related to staff performance.

“The Department is committed to playing its part in reducing the budget deficit. All awards are non-consolidated and non-pensionable and are paid in line with Cabinet Office and HM Treasury guidelines on Civil service pay. They do not add to future paybill costs.”

“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) uses the performance related pay system which is part of the standard Civil Service wide pay model. Performance awards acknowledge high performance and are used to motivate and reward our staff. By awarding staff performance awards on an annual basis, we maximise value for money and control of the pay bill as these payments are non-pensionable and have to be re-earned every year. The amount we pay in performance related payments is less than 4% of the FCO’s total pay bill.

“The FCO’s pay policy for senior staff is determined centrally by the Cabinet Office. In 2012/13 only 25% of senior FCO staff were eligible to receive a performance award.

“The Permanent Secretaries remuneration committee at the Cabinet Office is the decision making body for awarding performance related payments to the most senior staff.”

Bonus statistics*
Home Office

2012/13 - £6,524,712

2011/12 - £4,502,279

Business, Innovation and Skills

2012/13 - £2,256,954

2011/12 £1,614,939

Foreign Office

2012/13 - £6,671,563

2011/12 - £7,426,050

Total for all departments - for 2012/13 £15,453,229

* The figures include both end of year bonuses and in year bonuses.



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     Plenty of money for the fatcats but not enough for the poor elderly, sick, disabled and unemployed..What a disgusting shower of shit this Lib/CON coalition is and all those that support it.

A true disgrace and a real kick in the teeth for every British taxpayer.

Joy Division wrote:A true disgrace and a real kick in the teeth for every British taxpayer.

Only the blind can be excused for not seeing what this Lib/Con coalition is all about and that is for the richest in society.   

.......All the rest that support it must have had a full frontal lobotomy.