Work
Secretary Iain Duncan Smith paid his staff bonuses totalling more than
£44million last year while slashing benefits for countless needy and vulnerable
people.
The top Tory’s department is in chaos with delays to flagship benefit reforms, a huge benefit tests backlog, botched work capability assessments and an IT crisis.
But senior civil service fatcats based in Whitehall were still paid bonuses of up to £17,500, based on performance the previous year.
In all, just 62 of them shared £671,000 on top of hefty salaries that often run to six figures.
And more junior Department for Work and Pensions staff were paid bonuses of up to £2,710 to top up their wages.
The average payment to rank-and-file employees was £515.
In all, 97,701 of the department’s 99,739 staff – a staggering 98% – shared more than £43.8million.
The huge sum was in addition to in-year rewards of cash and vouchers totalling another £5.3million.
Disability campaigners were outraged by what they branded rewards for “incompetence and complacency”.
The DWP insisted that bonuses are only paid to employees whose work is consistently good or outstanding.
But the PCS union, which represents junior staff, said that its members needed decent pay not bonuses.
Leader Mark Serwotka said: “Staff in jobcentres and benefit offices work hard for low pay but are not helped by bonuses, which favour the already well paid and should be scrapped with the money ploughed back into salaries.”
Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander has pledged to wage war on Whitehall’s bonus culture but bonuses for junior staff were only fractionally down on £45.6million the pervious year.
Sue Marsh, of the Spartacus disability campaign group, said that the payments would paid for almost 5,000 disabled people to receive Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) for a year.
It would almost cover the £66million spent each year hearing appeals from people turned down for ESA, she said.
Ms Marsh said: “How on earth could anybody involved in the catalogue of disasters justify any bonus at all let alone £44million? It really is extraordinary.”
A department spokesman stressed that most of those who receive the cash working on the frontline rather than in Whitehall.
The spokesman said: “There are around 100,000 people working at DWP, which includes staff delivering important welfare reforms and fulfilling frontline roles at pension centres and getting people back to work at Jobcentre Plus.
“These payments are performance related in recognition of the work they do.”
But the Reverend Paul Nicolson, of campaign group Taxpayers Against Poverty, said the money should have gone to victims of the bedroom tax who are struggling with bills.
“That would have paid a large number of bedroom taxes for tenants whose unemployment income is £71.60 a week, with increases frozen at 1% a year, and the prices of food and utilities escalating,” he said.
Labour MP Tom Greatrex, who has campaigned against ATOS’s flawed work capability tests, said that the scale of the payments was not justified.
The shadow minister said: “It is incredible and astonishing that Ian Duncan Smith is bunging his civil servants nearly £50million in bonuses when they are bungling Universal Credit, closing Remploy factories and allowing Atos to hound the sick and disabled.
“That IDS is happy to reward incompetence and complacency tells you all you need to know about his attitude to the the most vulnerable in society.”
The top Tory’s department is in chaos with delays to flagship benefit reforms, a huge benefit tests backlog, botched work capability assessments and an IT crisis.
But senior civil service fatcats based in Whitehall were still paid bonuses of up to £17,500, based on performance the previous year.
In all, just 62 of them shared £671,000 on top of hefty salaries that often run to six figures.
And more junior Department for Work and Pensions staff were paid bonuses of up to £2,710 to top up their wages.
The average payment to rank-and-file employees was £515.
In all, 97,701 of the department’s 99,739 staff – a staggering 98% – shared more than £43.8million.
The huge sum was in addition to in-year rewards of cash and vouchers totalling another £5.3million.
Disability campaigners were outraged by what they branded rewards for “incompetence and complacency”.
The DWP insisted that bonuses are only paid to employees whose work is consistently good or outstanding.
But the PCS union, which represents junior staff, said that its members needed decent pay not bonuses.
Leader Mark Serwotka said: “Staff in jobcentres and benefit offices work hard for low pay but are not helped by bonuses, which favour the already well paid and should be scrapped with the money ploughed back into salaries.”
Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander has pledged to wage war on Whitehall’s bonus culture but bonuses for junior staff were only fractionally down on £45.6million the pervious year.
Sue Marsh, of the Spartacus disability campaign group, said that the payments would paid for almost 5,000 disabled people to receive Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) for a year.
It would almost cover the £66million spent each year hearing appeals from people turned down for ESA, she said.
Ms Marsh said: “How on earth could anybody involved in the catalogue of disasters justify any bonus at all let alone £44million? It really is extraordinary.”
A department spokesman stressed that most of those who receive the cash working on the frontline rather than in Whitehall.
The spokesman said: “There are around 100,000 people working at DWP, which includes staff delivering important welfare reforms and fulfilling frontline roles at pension centres and getting people back to work at Jobcentre Plus.
“These payments are performance related in recognition of the work they do.”
But the Reverend Paul Nicolson, of campaign group Taxpayers Against Poverty, said the money should have gone to victims of the bedroom tax who are struggling with bills.
“That would have paid a large number of bedroom taxes for tenants whose unemployment income is £71.60 a week, with increases frozen at 1% a year, and the prices of food and utilities escalating,” he said.
Labour MP Tom Greatrex, who has campaigned against ATOS’s flawed work capability tests, said that the scale of the payments was not justified.
The shadow minister said: “It is incredible and astonishing that Ian Duncan Smith is bunging his civil servants nearly £50million in bonuses when they are bungling Universal Credit, closing Remploy factories and allowing Atos to hound the sick and disabled.
“That IDS is happy to reward incompetence and complacency tells you all you need to know about his attitude to the the most vulnerable in society.”
