Fury erupts over mega bonuses dished out to ‘failing’ mandarins — including head of Britain’s chaotic borders
FURY erupted last night over mega bonuses dished out to “failing” mandarins — including the head of Britain’s chaotic borders.
Huge “performance-related” payouts for top civil servants were slipped out in annual government accounts yesterday.
UK Border Force boss Phil Douglas took home £15-20,000 extra last year on top of his £135,000 salary.
He was awarded the cash despite his agency being slammed over illegal migration and airport chaos.
Pressure groups blasted the bumper payday, with Joanna Marchong of the TaxPayers’ Alliance branding it a “reward for failure”.
She said: “Our borders are in a state of perpetual crisis, yet the top dog is being given an almighty pat on the back.
“If ministers want to find savings, they could crack down on bonuses to incompetent bureaucrats.”
Meanwhile the boss of a Ministry of Defence agency slammed as “well and truly broken” was paid almost half a million pounds last year.
Andy Start, chief executive of Defence Equipment and Supply (DE&S), was paid around £470,000.
That includes a basic salary of around £280,000, a bonus of around £175,000 and other unspecified benefits of £13,500.
The MoD said the sum was signed off by the “previous government” and hinted it might not be good value.
An MoD spokesman said: “This decision was taken under the previous government.
“This government is committed to securing value for money for taxpayers, cutting waste and strengthening our Armed Forces.”
The figures make Mr Start the country’s third best paid civil servant after HS2 boss Mark Thurston on £640,000 and Network Rail boss Andrew Haines on £585,000.
And the boss of HMRC pocketed a bonus of up to £10,000 last year despite taxpayers slamming dire customer service.
Sir Jim Harra received between £5,000-10,000 in performance-related pay on top of his annual salary of around £200,000.
His handsome bung came despite a National Audit Office report blasting awful telephone wait times.
Customers spent collectively 798 years on hold in 2022-23 — twice the wait time of the previous year.
An HMRC spokesman said: “We generated a record £843.4billion in tax revenues last year, up 3.6 per cent on the previous 12 months.
“Wait times on our phone lines are still not where we want them to be but we’re making strong progress in our efforts to improve them.”