Home Office staff get £14.4m bonuses despite string of failings
Civil servants at the Home Office have been given £14.5million in bonuses, despite a string of failings.
The payments handed out in 2022-23 to staff working for Home Secretary Suella Braverman are more than double the £6.6m given out the year before. In total, Government civil servants have been rewarded with bonuses of more than £40m, paid to them in vouchers to spend in High Street stores.
That is up £10m in a year but the 33% rise across all departments is dwarfed by the 119% Home Office surge. And the increase is likely to raise eyebrows at a time when the department is in the public eye for its failures. Those include its inability to get a grip on the small boats crisis, including the shambles of its flagship policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Announced more than 18 months ago, it still faces a challenge in court. The department was also hit by the scandal of the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, and the £6m spent daily to keep asylum seekers in hotels due to a backlog of 175,000 applications. Amnesty International’s Steve Valdez-Symonds said of those delays: “It is utterly disgraceful that new asylum laws will make this backlog, its cost and the limbo it imposes even worse.”
The vouchers – given as bonuses to thousands of Whitehall staff, often in values of £25 to £100 – can be spent in stores such as Asda, Greggs, John Lewis and Primark. The scheme is run by French-owned Edenred, which ran the school meals initiative.
![Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade qhidquiutiqxinv](/upload/news/2023/02/01/1_m.jpg)
In answer to a question from Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry, Home Office minister Chris Philp said bonuses reward “excellent performance”. The Foreign Office had the second highest total at £11.1m, then the Ministry of Justice and Department of Work and Pensions at £5.8m each. The Cabinet Office gave £920,000 and HMRC £820,000. The lowest were £138,500 at Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, £110,000 at the Treasury and £74,325 at Health and Social Security.
The Government said awards “follow an approval process to ensure value”, adding: “These schemes incentivise productivity. Non-cash vouchers are standard practice across the private sector.”
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176268_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176264_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/02/176213_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/06/27/176126_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/06/176290_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/06/176289_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/06/176288_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/06/176287_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/06/176286_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/06/176285_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176284_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176281_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176279_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176275_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176274_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176273_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176271_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176269_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176268_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176267_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176266_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176265_m.jpg)
![](/upload/news/2024/07/05/176264_m.jpg)