Senior civil servants who were paid £1 million in bonuses were today accused of putting wage demands ahead of the concept of public service.

But a top public official denied the claim and said bonuses were paid to improve standards and to attract people who might otherwise take high paid private sector posts.

The Assembly's Committee for Finance and Personnel today questioned a leading civil servant on the controversial bonuses, but the hearing came on a day when MLAs are expected to receive a pay rise of their own.

It emerged more than £1million in bonuses was paid to 75% of the 200 senior civil servants last year and today the civil service director of personnel, the Department of Finance's Derek Baker, gave evidence on the bonus system.

"In terms of recruitment to the senior civil service, we have a number of recent examples where we had difficulty recruiting people at the minimum of the relative senior civil service pay band, because people in other sectors are actually earning more," he said.

"So we're either having offers of jobs turned down, or we're having to negotiate with people coming in, who want to come in on higher salaries because they are in higher salaries, bearing in mind that most senior civil service posts are recruited via external competition and not within the civil service."

Committee chair Mitchell McLaughlin and his fellow MLAs were told that under guidance from the independent Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), 75% of the 200 senior civil servants are awarded bonuses each year.

Ulster Unionist David McNarry said figures supplied to the committee showed that last year approximately 50 civil servants received a £10,000 bonus, approximately 50 got £6,500 and a further 50 received £4,000. The remaining 50 senior civil servants did not receive a bonus.

The decision to award bonuses is made by a pay committee in each department, led by the department's permanent secretary. Recommendations are then overseen by a further committee made up of permanent secretaries drawn from across the departments.

The committee was told the criteria could include bonuses for civil servants who showed leadership in a difficult political and operational environment, with some members branding the example a vague and subjective measure of performance.

The SDLP's Declan O'Loan said: "There is considerable disquiet around this bonus scheme for senior civil servants, both in the public and in the political community, not least because of the very difficult economic times that we are living in."

He added: "Have the old fashioned, traditional concepts of public service disappeared?"

But Mr Baker replied: "No, I don't think they have. I think in the civil service specifically, but the wider public service generally, you will find huge commitment amongst public servants."

Committee members focused on the payment of bonuses to 75% of the top civil servants as part of the system.

Sinn Fein's Fra McCann asked: "Can you indicate if there were any examples of bonuses being awarded in the context of failure to meet business targets, failure to meet reduction targets in relation to sickness absence and failure to eliminate underspend?"

Mr Baker said: "No I can't because I'm not privy to the individual performance appraisals that go on across these 200 people."

Sinn Fein's Mitchell McLaughlin said that if bonuses were ever refused, it was likely to have been noticed.

He added: "So that would assume that the bonus is there to be dispersed on an annual basis irrespective of performance... the decision seems to be who is going to get it as opposed to whether it was earned in the course of the year."

Politicians asked why senior civil servants should receive bonuses at a time when civil service sick absence levels remain high and departments have been criticised for under-spending valuable resources.

The DUP's Peter Weir said: "I assume this (bonus payment) is the only aspect of government expenditure across the board where there is never ever going to be an under-spend?"

Mr Baker replied: "I don't think there have been any significant under-spends in the bonus pot over recent years."

The committee's deliberations came as a report by the SSRB is expected to recommend a pay rise for MLAs,

There is speculation the report, to be released tomorrow, will propose Assembly members receive a pay rise of 3.5 per cent.

It recently emerged civil servants were continuing to lose almost three weeks of work each year on sick leave.

Despite government efforts to radically cut absenteeism data from the Statistics and Research Agency showed sick absence had only dropped from 13.7 days last year to 12.9 days in the year 2007/2008.

Finance Minister Nigel Dodds conceded at the time that the reduction fell short of targets set by government but said he was determined to bring the figures down.