FOREIGN AID: CIVIL SERVICE BILL ROCKETS

As ex minister says aid cash should be used to give OUR nurses and police pay rises . . .

THE wage bill at the foreign aid department has soared by 40 per cent in seven years.

It now stands at £133million – £38million up on 2010 when David Cameron took power.

His target of diverting 0.7 per cent of national income abroad saw spending reach £13.3billion last year.

The huge sums were revealed as a Tory former minister said part of the aid budget should instead go on pay rises for police and nurses.

In 2010-2011, the Department for International Development had 1,822 staff. By this April this had leapt to 2,208, when other ministries were axeing jobs and slashing budgets.

Half of the 386 extra employees have been added since Priti Patel took charge of the ministry last July.

The pay bill on her watch has risen by 7 per cent. Dfid hands out the highest salaries in Whitehall, averaging £53,000 a head, and it is one of only three of all 19 government departments to keep recruiting.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North East Somerset, said: ‘When

the nation’s finances are under such strain it is troubling that it costs so much to spend taxpayers’ money.

‘Overseas aid seems to be the department of spendthrifts.’

Alex Wild, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance lobby group, said: ‘For all the talk of austerity, some parts of the public sector continue to have vast amounts of taxpayers’ money lavished upon them.

‘It is absurd that the Government has taken the tax burden to a 30year high while still borrowing more than £6.5million an hour, only to spend the proceeds on wasteful projects overseas and higher salaries for Dfid staff.’

When Mr Cameron became prime minister, £8.45billion was being spent on international development annually. The outlay rose 57 per cent to £13.3billion last year, £700 for every household.

Because spending is linked to national output – the budget will grow in line with the economy even as other departments face cuts.

Robert Halfon, who was sacked from his frontbench role by Theresa May after the election, said the aid budget should be used to fund a pay rise for state employees.

‘People recognise that many public sector workers have had to struggle over the past few years,’ he told the BBC.

‘While the economy remains difficult, while we get down the deficit, we need to look at sacred cows like the overseas aid budget and use that to help the lowest-paid public sector workers.’

Mr Halfon, a former apprenticeships minister, said the extra cash could help boost the salaries of teachers, nurses and police officers.

Miss Patel called for Dfid to be abolished before she became International Development Secretary. But she launched an impassioned

‘Department of spendthrifts’

defence of the aid target in the run-up to the election when it appeared the 0.7 per cent target might be watered down.

This week she tried to head off criticism by promising a crackdown on world bodies, charities and suppliers squandering aid money.

She said she would impose stricter controls on daily allowances which can run as high as £600 per person as well as expenses run up by administering aid programmes.

She said performance contracts would scrutinise grants to bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the UN. While Whitehall has endured the biggest cuts since the Second World War over the past six years, foreign aid has largely remained untouched.

Many Tory MPs and peers believe ministers should drop the 0.7 per cent pledge.

A Dfid spokesman said last night: ‘ The International Development Secretary is leading a robust efficiency review which is estimated to save £500million by 2019/20, higher than the target set in the 2015 spending review.

‘These savings will be made through reform of procurement and commercial practices, estates, IT and pay. The department has some of the lowest overheads in Whitehall and has already reduced admin costs by a third to deliver the best value for money for the taxpayer.’

The Mail has repeatedly highlighted how foreign aid cash can be wasted. Miss Patel has claimed ‘to date there hasn’t been one’ newspaper article about foreign aid ‘that’s been 100 per cent accurate’.

But when the newspaper asked her to point out any errors in seven stories published over the past year, she could not do so. In January, we revealed that more than £1billion has been given away in straight cash handouts over the past five years.