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Civil servants re-hired after £4m pay-off

Consultants’ bill cost extra £425k

By Lisa Smyth
Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Almost £4m in retirement packages have been paid out to Northern Ireland civil servants who were then re-employed as consultants at a further cost of £425,000 to the taxpayer over five years, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal today.

Recently, the Department of Finance and Personnel admitted it had paid out a total of £424,248 for consultancy services provided by retired civil servants between 2003 and 2008.

And today, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal that these retired civil servants had already received £848,187 in respect of pension and more than £250,000 in respect of lump sums.

The total amount paid out in remuneration to civil servants taking retirement over the five-year period was £3,803,191 — amounting to over three-quarters of a million pounds each year.

The figures were released by the Department of Finance and Personnel in response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by this newspaper and have prompted anger among politicians and a leading UK-wide pressure group.

Susie Squire, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, demanded an immediate review to ensure that public money is being used in the most cost efficient way.

She said: “The cost of consultants to taxpayers is far too high and this situation is totally unacceptable.

“These payments are excessive, particularly considering they were not made to full-time employees, but part-time consultants who should not be needed in the first place.

“Some serious questions need to be asked about the professional practices of the department.”

Criticising the amount paid out by the Department to ex-civil servants, SDLP MLA John Dallat said arrangements should be revised to increase public confidence.

He said: “I think consultancy is one of the gravy trains which leaves the station on a regular basis and pays rich dividends.

“Apart from the injustice of all this to others who could do the jobs equally well and don’t have well padded pensions, retired consultants are sometimes called in to produce reports into how present civil servants handled, for example, procurement contracts and a variety of complaints which relate to the decisions of existing civil servants.”

A Department of Finance and Personnel spokeswoman defended the payments as making economic sense.

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25 Comments

Steven I take your point however Peter Robinson announced in the Assembly in May 2008 that he accepted that we were legally entitled to back pay...we are now in April 2009 and we have received absolutely nothing...this has been going on for more than 11 months...the money has already been set aside...yet our management are refusing to allocate it . I am here 17 years now...I have bills to pay just like everyone else who bothers to pay bills...I simply believe that when people make promises they should keep them . I would not be resorting to this practice of sending e-mails to this website if I did not feel hard done by...and yes...this takes five minutes of my time and as soon as I finish this comment I will be back working hard as usual. If you were in the same boat as myself and my colleagues would you not take time out to complain ? Please see Pauls recent comment...management first...everyone else forget about it. We do the work in this place...management don't

Posted by Ian D | 16.04.09, 13:09 GMT

That's the cost of eight politicians, or sixteen of the clowns without their wives. How can we possibly get by without them? I despair.

Posted by PC | 16.04.09, 00:35 GMT

What do politicians expect? Civil servants could do the work that consultants are brought in to do, if they had the time - but the politicians insist on the number of civil servants being reduced, whilst piling extra work on to them. That's why consultants have to be employed: to meet Assembly demands and let civil servants get on with their increasing workload - not least the number of questions asked by Assembly Members who could easily get the information on the Internet or read consultation documents sent to them. It’s no wonder vital services get delayed while they get their answers. We all know that consultants come in, get the information and answers from the staff anyway and then present it in a very expensive glossy report. Retired civil servants have a head start in the consultancy business as they already have the necessary background and consequently cost less to employ. In the absence of a properly staffed civil service, does that not make good economic sense?

Posted by Alex | 15.04.09, 21:44 GMT

Paul re backpay for EO2s I dont remember receiving any of this !
The backpay for equal pay has nothing to do with getting the same pay as GB civil servants its to do with equal pay for admin and technical grades that are weighted at the same in the work they do.

Posted by Pablo | 15.04.09, 20:28 GMT

The same applies to teachers who are made 'redundant' with a package... then come October they are back doing supply teaching. How are the young graduates supposed to get jobs or experience with this system. I have friends who are 'retired' teachers but I feel that when you get out, you should stay out.

Posted by FJM | 15.04.09, 19:46 GMT

Exactly the same thing has happened in MoD under Normalisation, the twist to that one is that the people in the Personnel Department who arranged to make themselves redundant also managed to arrange to come back with a recruitment agency after they had banked their lump sum and bonus for doing such a great job. It would have been better value to the taxpayer if they have concentrated on getting the existing staff into all the vacancies instead.

Posted by Sue | 15.04.09, 19:02 GMT

One query...why are we paying as consultants people who were largely dependent on the services of other consultants when they ere employed....recoup the costs of their re-engagement from their retirement packages....a second thought, if they were that valuable, why were they let go in the first place. Surely the Stormont and NICS circus has enough clowns? I wonder what the budget is for outsize shoes and red noses up there.

Posted by Malachy Mulligan | 15.04.09, 18:29 GMT

This country is full of retired (particularly public sector) people with big pensions, occupying another full time job that someone without same big pension should have.

This is particularly common amongst former members of the uniformed services - medically discharged and otherwise, earning a new big salary as well as a big pension, as well as a big lump sum, as well as a retraining allowance, as well as a deafness allowance, and whatever other allowance, etc, etc, etc......

High time all this was brought out into the open.

Posted by C. Patton | 15.04.09, 17:23 GMT

The practice is fairly common in the BBC as well.

'cuts' are made to balance the books, then the same personnel are brought back as external agency staff. They do say, money makes the world go round, seems this applies to employees as well!

Posted by Stephen | 15.04.09, 16:34 GMT

Well said IAN D. Long overdue considering that EO1 and EO11 grades got their back pay in 2007 bringing them in line with their UK colleaues. Oh I forgot - they are first line management grades.

Posted by paul | 15.04.09, 16:33 GMT

Ian D - I see you are working hard anyway! Providing there is a requirement for the role, and it is advertised through the proper channels, then this isn't an issue, however the problem with the civil service is that most of these positions are unnecessary to begin with!

Posted by Steven | 15.04.09, 15:52 GMT

Typical of the Now Institutionalised behaviour that is prevalent in our Public and Political life. This goes along with our Politicians and their Expences. . If an ordinary Citizen behaved in this Manner we would in Jail .

Posted by Adrian. | 15.04.09, 15:30 GMT

Lisa Smyth - well done. You should ask each Department to name and publish total payments made to members of their staff or their Management Boards who have left their post and taken up another with the Department in recent years. An equally interesting question might be how were those positions advertised / what was the appointment process?

You may be very surprised by the result!

Tax payer.

Posted by Taxpayer | 15.04.09, 15:23 GMT

The civil service are currently recruiting people to replace workers on a 51 week contract,the outgoing staff taking their expierience in the job that will be filled (eventualy) by sombody who will have to be retrained at a great expense to the taxpayer.The current system dosn't allow the 51 week workers to be kept on even though they could be exceptional workers!!.The tax payer is being robbed by the civil service and everyone including Stormont seems powerless to do anything!!

Posted by big bob | 15.04.09, 15:12 GMT

Well said, Brian - it's a pretty basic concept, Essex Expat, get with it.

Posted by No Flags | 15.04.09, 14:51 GMT

To Essex Expat, just because this is standard practice in the private sector doesn't mean it is acceptable in the public sector. Private companies make profits and can do what they want with this profit, if they go under then it's their hard luck (except banks of course but thats a different story for another day). Public Sector departments must be accountable to taxpayers, it's not their money they art dishing out, it's taxpayers.

Posted by Brian | 15.04.09, 13:59 GMT

This is standard practice in the private sector as well. Many people who retire either early or on time, or resign of their own choice return under a supplier contract. This benefits the organisation as they still have access to their expertise, and benefits the individual as per their retirement rights. The organisation can also dispense with their services without the need for redundancy should the need disappear.

They aren't paying them for nothing, it's at market rates for the value they can bring to an organisation, probably equivalent to their salary, plus an uplift to cover benefits that employees usually receive, healthcare etc.

Is this really a big story?

Posted by Essex Expat | 15.04.09, 13:14 GMT

I know someone who retired early and got a lump sum of 18 months salary and immediate pension

The same guy now charges 3000 per week plus expenses as a consultant to the people he used to work with and has so far got about 3 months work i think even after tax at the highest level is more than a tidy sum.

Something needs to be done about this as far as I am concerned when someone takes early retirement and a lump sum then they must stay retired from any job at all apart from voluntary for example if a retired civil servant starts driving a courier van or stacking shelves in a supermarket ''to keep themselves busy'' they are preventing another person who really needs the money from gettinga job

Posted by Robert | 15.04.09, 12:48 GMT

Ex-civil servants !!! What about the current Civil Servants who have been waiting for more than 11 months now for arrears of back pay which they are legally entitled to ? We should have got these arrears last week but DFPNI seem to be more concerned with other matters such as this rather than sorting out their current employees. We have reached the end of our tether.

Posted by Ian D | 15.04.09, 12:31 GMT