Average pay for Whitehall staff up 'well ahead of inflation'
Half a million civil servants enjoyed above-inflation pay rises last year, figures showed yesterday.
Average pay for Whitehall’s army of pen-pushers went up by 3.6 per cent – well ahead of inflation, which for much of last year was running at below 2 per cent.
And while 39,171 employees left the Civil Service, 39,005 were hired – which means that, overall, during the depths of the recession the Government’s main workforce was trimmed by just 166.
Yes please minister: Playing it for laughs in a Whitehall sit-com, but in real-life civil servants' pay is outstripping rising price
The failure of Whitehall to shoulder a share of the burden of recession during Gordon Brown’s final year in power provoked anger among commentators yesterday. Critics say many civil servants are shielded from fears over losing their jobs compared to those in the private sector.
Concern over the cushioning of civil servants also focused on the high pay levels for mandarins and their senior managers. There were 130, including ten part-timers, who earned more than £150,000 a year. This compares with the £142,500 salary of the Prime Minister.
In all, 879 were paid more than £100,000. And the figures don’t include overtime earnings or bonuses, frequently paid to senior managers. The information is found in the annual breakdown of the Civil Service, published by the Office for National Statistics. It runs up to the end of the last financial year in March – two months before the Coalition came into power, pledging major cuts.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: ‘Much of the increase in employment was because of new staff hired by Jobcentre Plus to help get people back to work.’
Ministers believe that when Civil Service employment figures covering the summer are published, they are likely to show record falls in payroll numbers.
Average pay for full-time civil servants last year – all but 35,000 of the 527,484 working in Whitehall – went up by 3.6 per cent, from £22,850 to £23,680 over the year.
Current inflation, measured by the Consumer Prices Index, is 3.2 per cent. For much of last year it was below 2 per cent, and, during the autumn, below 1.5 per cent.
Emma Boon of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘These latest statistics are a real worry. The public is told that the Civil Service will be streamlined and yet staff are being recruited almost as fast as they are leaving.’
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