The Cabinet Office has revealed that it has 13 contractors who receive at least £1,000 a day, nearly double any other department.
Civil Service World reported last month that there were at least 21 temporary workers employed on day rates exceeding £1,000, with the Department for Transport employing seven, and Department for Work and Pensions six, although the Cabinet Office had not yet responded to the parloamentary question by Conservative MP Philip Davies.
Updated figures now show that the DfT employs six contractors, meaning that the number employed by the Cabinet Office, which was revealed last week, is more than double any other government department.
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The estimated total across government is now 33, although some departments have said they do not hold this information centrally, so the real number may be higher.
Setting out the figures in a written answer to Davies, Cabinet Office minster Oliver Dowden said the Cabinet Office use contingent labour to supply specialist skills and capability not readily available within the civil service, with 13 contractors currently on rates of £1,000 or more per day.
“Out of these, nine are deployed to work on departmental transformation projects in other government departments; three have been engaged for 1-2 months; and one has been engaged for 14 months.”
As well as the six each at both Department for Transport and Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it had three “contingent workers” on a contracted rate of £1,000 or more per day as of March 2018. Similarly, the Ministry of Justice said it had three contractors on day rates of over £1,000, as of February 2018.
The Home Office said it had one contractor on a rate exceeding £1,000 a day, while the Crown Prosecution Service also had one contractor paid at least £1,000 a day, according to the Attorney General’s Office. None of the other departments that are overseen by the Attorney General’s Office, including the Government Legal Department, were paying more than £1,000 a day for contractors.
The Department for Education said it did not have any contractors paid over £1,000 daily, but informed Davies that it was employing 30 contractors paid at least £245 a day – as well as 50 at the Education and Skills Funding Agency and 19 at the Standards and Testing Agency – as of March 2018.
The Department for International Development said it did not hold this information centrally, while the Ministry of Defence said it does not “routinely maintain current details” of people paid over £1,000 a day.
The Department for International Trade, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department of Health and Social Care were not employing anyone on contracts worth this sum per day. Neither was the Northern Ireland Office, the Scotland Office, the Wales Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, HM Treasury or the Department for Exiting the European Union.
Prospect deputy general secretary Garry Graham said that, at a time when many civil servants are facing redundancy due to departmental budget cuts and average pay increases have been capped at 1-1.5%, the figures are “a slap in the face” to public servants.
“Despite the government promising to end the public sector pay cap last year, it is clear that there is still one rule for dedicated public servants who are expected to work for less and less, and another for private sector contractors who can demand as much as they want,” he said.
“This shocking revelation is yet another reason why the government must withdraw their misguided and insulting civil service pay guidance and enter serious negotiations about how we can make sure all civil servants get the decent pay they deserve.”
Responding to the Cabinet Office figures, which were first reported in The Times, Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier said: “It’s not acceptable for someone to be on a decade-long day rate. Departments should only use contractors when absolutely necessary to fill a gap and when they present value for money.”