Civil service fat cats’ pay rockets to £100m

Staggering 552 handed salaries of more than £150,000 a year

THE cost to the taxpayer of fat-cat civil servants earning more than the Prime Minister has soared to almost £100million.

Last year 552 officials were paid over £150,000 – up 7 per cent on 2018.

The vast majority are thought to take home more than Boris Johnson’s £157,372 salary.

Fifteen of them pocketed more than £300,000, topped by the boss of the controversial HS2 project on £625,000.

The list is dominated by rail chiefs, with 46 HS2 staff and 73 Network Rail employees raking in more than £150,000.

The news comes days after the Government announced rail fares will rise by more than the rate of inflation next year. The fat- cat league table will anger millions of workers who have suffered pay freezes in recent years. The details were sneaked out on the Cabinet Office website late on Tuesday, showing the pay packets of all civil servants earning more than £150,000 – in £5,000 bands.

It showed that the full cost of these salaries was up to £99.8million – a rise from £94.4million in 2019. The best-paid public servant is Mark Thurston, chief executive of HS2 Ltd, which is building the new line from London to Birmingham. He earns between £620,000 and £625,000.

Next is Andrew Haines, chief executive of Network Rail, who is on up to £590,000. Of the 15 people who earn more than twice the Prime Minister, 11 are from Network Rail. They include Jeremy Westlake, the chief financial officer, on £420,000, and the country’s highest paid female public servant Susan Cooklin, Network Rail’s managing director of route services, on £390,000.

Other high-paid officials include James O’Sullivan, chief executive of Highways England on £415,000, and David Peattie, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on £395,000. A Whitehall source said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had been ‘bearing down’ on high pay in the sector.

They stressed he ‘has been batting back excessive pay requests f or some time. He has been encouraging CEOs and chairmen to volunteer pay reductions, and has got temporary reductions from HS2, Network Rail and Highways England among others.’

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘We need to make sure the civil service is able to attract highcalibre people who can deliver quality services and drive forward projects in a way that represents true value to the taxpayer.

‘However, very high salaries in the public sector must be justified so it is absolutely right that we publish this information and allow it to be scrutinised.’

Sir Peter Hendy, chairman of Network Rail, said: ‘Over recent years we have reduced our executives’ total wage bill and the number of high earners.

‘We are absolutely committed to delivering more value for the taxpayer while also balancing this priority with the need to attract and retain the best people.’

An HS2 spokesman said the number of staff paid more than the PM had declined by two over the past year. They said: ‘In a highly technical project of the scale and complexity of HS2 it is necessary to employ the right level of expertise and knowledge to deliver the programme successfully.’

John O’Connell, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, attacked the ‘public sector merry-go-round’, saying: ‘ These soaring salaries... are beyond the wildest dreams of most taxpayers.

‘The fact that these staggering sums have been paid to bureaucrats overseeing massive failures like the HS2 gravy train makes it even harder to swallow.’

‘Public sector merry-go-round’