Civil servants paid £26m in bonuses

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The money was paid out in "non-consolidated performance pay" shared between 2,600 of the most senior officials working in Whitehall, said ITV News At Ten.

Lib Dem treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott, who compiled the figures from answers to parliamentary questions, said that he was "amazed" at the scale of the awards.

However, the Cabinet Office insisted that non-consolidated performance pay did not represent the award of bonuses but was actually a system for cutting the pay of officials who failed to meet performance targets.

According to the Lib Dem figures, £1.21 million was paid out to 141 senior officials in the Department for Business - three quarters of the total - an average of £8,582 each.

Officials at the Department of Health received a total of £1.99 million; at the the Department for Transport they got £1.17 million; at the Department for Children, Schools and Families £800,000; and at the Treasury £776,707.

Lord Oakeshott said: "Top civil servants get a very good salary averaging £1,500 a week and an excellent index-linked pension. Why do they need £200 a week extra just to get out of bed in the morning - more than many pensioners?"

A Cabinet Office spokesman said that the system of non-consolidated performance pay meant that part of the salaries of senior officials was linked to their performance.

"If they do not perform strongly they do not get any of this money. It's not so much a bonus for doing well as a pay cut if they don't deliver," the spokesman said.

"In January permanent secretaries volunteered to waive any performance-related pay they would have received this year and in March the Government announced that senior civil servants would receive a below-inflation pay settlement for 2009/10."