Whitehall's bonus culture
IT BEGGARS belief that a civil servant should have been paid a bonus of almost £200,000 at a time of acute national austerity.
The idea of performance-related bonuses for public sector workers is not inherently objectionable so long as it is implemented with restraint and common sense.
That should mean an upper limit of a few thousand pounds for genuinely outstanding performance, not life-changing lump sums being handed out to ministerial favourites across Whitehall.
Bankers were rightly slated for their excessive bonuses at a time when they were getting taxpayer-funded bailouts.
That the public sector, which is running a deficit of £120billion a year, should be aping this behaviour is unforgivable.