Bosses at the Department for Work and Pensions are receiving £17,000 bonuses, it has emerged.
The UK Government said 61 senior civil servants in the DWP – which is in charge of the welfare system, including the botched roll-out of Universal Credit – last year got awards at an average of £9600.
Bonus payments worth as much as £17,500 are being given to top officials in the Department for Work and Pensions, it has recently emerged.
The DWP’s bonus figures emerged in a freedom of information requested by the Daily Record. Details of awards were given depending on pay scale, including for grade six staff who earn about £70,000.
SNP MSP Shona Robison has hit out at the DWP for giving the senior staff these huge bonuses.
Robinson said last night “People will rightly be asking questions about where the DWP’s priorities lie.
“They scrapped the £10 bonus for people struggling over Christmas and inflicted cuts on low-income families across Scotland but are rewarding senior staff with huge bonuses.
“The Tory Government is letting the most vulnerable people in society down first with a system which overwhelmingly benefits the rich while low-income families are forced to choose between paying their rent and feeding their children.
The DWP have said “It is right that we support our employees by recognising good performance and for senior civil servants performance-related awards are restricted to top performers only.”
The figures go to show that most senior civil servants got between £9,500 and £17,500 in performance awards, averaging £9,600.
More than 55,000 staff in admin, executive officers and higher executive roles got £500.
