Top civil servants can now earn up to £174,000 without approval from ministers - paving the way for generous taxpayer-funded rises
Under new Civil Service guidance on 'pay control', only earnings above £174,000 – and bonuses over £25,000 – must be signed off, a hike from £150,000 and £17,500 respectively.
Last night Tories called the move a 'grubby deal'.
It will affect 260 civil servants who earn £150,000 to £200,000 a year, and 30 making more than £200,000. A further 2,915 staff earn more than £100,000 a year.
Pay control measures were introduced by the last Tory regime to exert a grip on the burgeoning public sector wage bill – especially the total getting more than the Prime Minister's £166,786.
The number of civil servants has increased by 21 per cent over the past five years – from 445,940 to 541,425 last September – with the wage bill up by a quarter.
The median salary for civil servants has increased by 25 per cent from £27,080 in 2019 to £33,980 last year.
The number working for the Housing, Communities and Local Government Department, now under Deputy Premier Angela Rayner, rose from 3,120 in 2019 to 4,990 last September, a hike of 60 per cent.
Shadow Paymaster General Richard Holden said: 'The state is far too bloated.
'They are a party in hock to public sector pay and trying to sneak out bumper pay deals for mandarins and quangocrats by the back door shows they don't have national interest at heart.
'A grubby deal for their public sector chums achieves nothing.'
An HM Treasury spokesman said: 'The previous threshold for senior civil servant's salaries was set in 2017, and since then average pay across the private and public sector has risen.
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