31 January 2014

The Home Affairs Committee has published a report on the work of the Permanent Secretary, which showed that the Home Office has paid huge bonuses to its staff despite the government making hundreds of thousands of people redundant due to the ‘financial situation’.

In addition, many consider recent policy and decision-making to reveal a 'poor performance' from the Home Office, but the department continue to pay staff bonuses that add up to a colossal, £6.5 million.

The areas in which the Home Office are failing in are numerous, the Home Affairs Committee said; for example, police procurement is not satisfactory and yet the Home Office is relying on it in order to deliver its financial savings.

Chairman of the Committee, Keith Vaz MP, said:

“It is irresponsible that the Home Office has continued to pay big bonuses despite presiding over many failure.... We should end the culture of rewarding failure.

Indeed, it is irresponsible that the Home Office has continued to pay big bonuses despite the job losses that are taking place in the Public Sector. A GMB report has shown that there have been 631,000 public sector job losses from 2010 until now. This means that the number of employees in the UK has fallen from 6,328,000 to 5,697,000 in the first quarter of 2013, which is a 10% decrease.

Furthermore as GMB predicts, there is a risk of a further 400,000 jobs being lost over the next two years.