Bonus payouts for HMRC staff that lost benefit discs
Bonuses have gone up by 70% compared to the £11m in the previous year, despite seven data breaches since April 2005
Bonuses have gone up by 70% compared to the £11m in the previous year, despite seven data breaches since April 2005
The HMRC department that caused the blunder which saw the personal details of
25 million families go missing, has been given £19m in performance-related
bonuses.
Some of the payouts, amounting to £8,000, were made just days after the news
of the missing child benefit database discs made headlines.
The bonuses have gone up by 70% compared to the £11m staff received in the
previous year despite seven data breaches since April
2005, the
Telegraph
reported.
According to figures released, 220 senior HMRC staff received bonuses for
2006-7 worth £1.7m, on average £8,000.
A further £1.7m was dished out to nearly 38,000 other workers who received ad
average of £453 each.
Conservative chairman of the Treasury sub-committee, Michael Fallon,
described the scale of the payout as ‘staggering’.
‘Given the over-payments of tax credits and data loss mistakes, constituents
might be surprised to learn that a third of staff at HMRC shared a
performance-related bonus,’ said Fallon.
But Treasury minister Jane Kennedy, said the increase was the result of a
‘pay assimilation exercise’ after HM Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue
merged in 2005.
Further reading:
Bonus
bonanza for civil servants
Apology for disc blunder costs the taxpayer £3m
Taxman warned not to influence Poynter review