Civil servants have used promotions to get around pay constraints set by the government, new analysis suggests. Over 2,000 of these officials earn more than £100,000 (€116,000) a year, an increase of 88% from 2016. 195 are also on an annual salary of over £150,000 (€175,000).
At the same time as this increase, the number of civil servants, also known in Britain as ‘mandarins,’ in the bottom wage brackets has decreased, according to the figures cited in The Daily Telegraph. These usually include frontline workers, like prison officers.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance has established that the annual salary bill for all mandarins has grown by 60% to more than £15 billion (around €17.5 billion). This is despite a freeze on salary increases, hence reports on the use of loopholes.
The news has received mixed responses. Some have criticised increased pay for civil servants, given complaints of reduced productivity due to the fact that around half of the officials are now working from home. Journalist Sebastian Payne, however, views the news as “good,” writing that “we should be paying senior civil servants more (and perhaps having fewer of them)” because “good management is vastly underrated and one of Britain’s biggest problems.” Former minister Conor Burns noted that this would only be the case if increased pay actually resulted in better staff being hired.
Government staff numbers have also increased significantly since 2016 by more than 100,000, which will partly be due to increased work demands since Brexit. COVID is also understood to have played a large role in the acquisition of workers. It has been highlighted that the additional 100,000 figure is greater than the entire regular forces of the British Army.
The growth of the civil service offers a prime insight into the shakes and turns of the Conservative Party, which accuses the group of playing a large role in the left-wing establishment ‘Blob.’ Boris Johnson last year said he would cut around 90,000 civil service jobs and use the money saved to fund tax cuts—a good vote winner. But this plan was itself effectively scrapped, and the number of mandarins, and the total pay they receive, is likely to continue growing.
