Weather presenters are being paid bonuses for getting the forecasts wrong
Staff at the Met Office walked away with record bonus payments of more than £6million last year.
The forecast is looking good for staff at the Met Office, after they walked away with record bonus payments of more than £6million last year.
They were so large that the average employee at the weather forecaster had an extra £187 in their wages every month as a performance-related reward.
Staff at the agency, which has its headquarters in Exeter, received the record payments just three years after it scrapped a scheme that directly linked the bonus to whether they got the forecast right.
Figures have revealed the payouts are still raining down, with this year’s average hitting £2,253 to each of the 2,250 employees.
The Met Office paid out £6.4million in bonuses last year, including up to £10,000 to directors. In total, £28.5million has been paid out over the past five years. It comes after the previous government pledged funding for a £1.2billion supercomputer in a project with Microsoft.
It will enable the Met Office to produce more accurate general forecasts as well as more precise local-scale predictions of storms, heavy rain and flooding.
The agency is run by £135,000-a-year Professor Penny Endersby, who accounts state was paid a bonus of £10,000 last year.
But the payouts have not gone down well with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Benjamin Elks, grassroots development manager, said: “Having scrapped the link to accurate forecasting, it shouldn’t be a surprise bonuses are surging.
“Bosses should take the temperature of the public and link rewards to performance.”
A Met Office spokesperson said it is “required to withhold some pay which is then paid to staff only if we meet the performance targets set by our customers and Board.
“Some relate to operational forecasting while others are more business focused. While much of our funding comes from government contracts, a percentage of our revenue also comes from commercial contracts.”
They added: “We achieved our targets, paying a dividend back to government to offset the cost to the taxpayer.”
