Mandarins’ bonuses cost taxpayer extra £30m

SOME civil servants saw their bonus payments more than double last year, with the total pot costing the taxpayer an extra £30million.

Staff at the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Home Office took home an average handout of £1, 83 and £778 respectively last year – more than double the 2021 figures.

The total bonus across the ten Whitehall departments which have published payroll data added up to £89.8million across 174,000 staff – or £517 per person, according to Labour Party analysis.

This is up from £59.2million the previous year despite pledges to slash the size of the civil service to save money and the ongoing rising cost of living.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘While households scrimp and save, civil servants have been treated with top-ups. Ministers need to rein in these payments.’

Bonuses at the Home Office rose from £11.2million in 2021 to £29.7million in 2022.

At the DfT, non-consolidated performancerelated payments went up by 187 per cent, with £ .3million distributed among the 3,751 staff. Cabinet Office staff took home almost £1,250 per head while the Department for Health gave out an average bonus of £1,03 – up 74 per cent from 2021.

Staff at the departments for Levelling Up, Business and Energy, Environment and Work and Pensions also enjoyed bonus rises.

The only departments to reduce the bonus burden on the taxpayer were the Ministry of Justice, which still had an average payment of £778, and the Department for Education, which reduced bonuses by almost a quarter to £225.

It comes months after Rishi Sunak pledged to cut back the ‘bloated post-Covid state’ by slashing the number of civil service jobs.