Brexit chaos, but May’s EU guru banks a tidy bonus

THE civil servant blamed by Eurosceptics for helping to throw the Brexit talks into chaos was paid a bonus of up to £20,000 bonus for six months’ work last year.

The annual report for the Department for Exiting the EU shows that Olly Robbins received between £15,000 and £20,000 on a salary of up to £130,000 for working between April 1 and Sept 30 at the department.

Mr Robbins then moved to the Cabinet Office, where he now works as Theresa May’s Europe adviser. His pay and any bonuses for the six months to March 30 will also be disclosed soon. If he did not take a pay cut after his move, it is likely that his overall remuneration came to nearly £200,000 – far in excess of even the Prime Minister’s salary.

Mr Robbins’s Europe unit in the Cabinet Office has been blamed by Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, for developing a second secret White Paper on leaving the EU.

The bonus was agreed by Whitehall’s Permanent Secretaries Remuneration Committee and signed off by Mrs May.

The annual report also shows that Catherine Webb, one of Mr Robbins’s colleagues who also transferred to the Cabinet Office, received a bonus of up to £15,000 on a salary of up to £40,000 for her six months at the department.

Mr Robbins is likely to be asked about the bonus when he appears before the European scrutiny select committee of MPS on Sept 5.