Ministerial Policy Advisers: Redundancy Pay
(asked on 5th July 2021) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what value of special severance payments were made to Government special advisers without the written approval of his Department in (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21; and by which Departments were those advisers employed.
This question was answered on 13th July 2021
It is important that all public sector exit payments are fair and proportionate to employers, employees and taxpayers. Special Severance Payments are no exception to this, and we expect these payments to be used in only in agreed exceptional circumstances. To this aim, HMT published updated guidance on Special Severance Payments on May 27th 2021 which supplemented the guidance already outlined in Managing Public Money. This guidance introduced new HMT powers to sanction departments for non-compliance and new annual reporting requirements for Special Severance Payments. As this guidance is newly implemented, we have not yet seen any breaches and therefore have not sanctioned any Department. In future, we will have real time data on breaches and sanctions, payments made with a value higher than £100,000 and payments made to employees earning over £150,000. We also expect the annual transparency reporting, which takes place later this year, to provide us with a Departmental overview of the value of Special Severance payments made every year.
It is important that all public sector exit payments are fair and proportionate to employers, employees and taxpayers. Special Severance Payments are no exception to this, and we expect these payments to be used in only in agreed exceptional circumstances. To this aim, HMT published updated guidance on Special Severance Payments on May 27th 2021 which supplemented the guidance already outlined in Managing Public Money. This guidance introduced new HMT powers to sanction departments for non-compliance and new annual reporting requirements for Special Severance Payments. As this guidance is newly implemented, we have not yet seen any breaches and therefore have not sanctioned any Department. In future, we will have real time data on breaches and sanctions, payments made with a value higher than £100,000 and payments made to employees earning over £150,000. We also expect the annual transparency reporting, which takes place later this year, to provide us with a Departmental overview of the value of Special Severance payments made every year.