150 new staff hired to spend aid cash

FOREIGN AID: BILL FOR CIVIL SERVICE ROCKETS The Mail, July 1

BRITAIN’S aid department has hired more than 150 extra staff to help spend its massive £13billion budget.

The size of the workforce at the Department for International Development has gone up from 2,823 to 2,978 over the past year – growing more than 5 per cent.

At the same time, the department’s overall pay bill rose by £6million to a total of £166million. The figures, released in the ministry’s annual report, come a week after the Mail revealed that the amount Dfid spends on staff has rocketed by 40 per cent since 2010.

The report also discloses that its outgoing chief, Sir Mark Lowcock, received a pay rise of around £5,000 in his final year. He leaves with a gold-plated pension pot worth £1.2million.

A spokesman for the department said Dfid was aiming to save £500million by 2020.