Taxpayer fury as civil servants pocket £30,000 for holidays they didn’t take
Taxpayers are left with a staggering £9 million bill after thousands of civil servants were paid for unused holidays they never took. An investigation has revealed that around 8,000 departing government staff received payouts for untaken annual leave over the past three years, with some individuals receiving up to £30,000.
This practice has become widespread in Whitehall, where staff can accumulate large amounts of leave and cash it in when they leave their jobs. Most civil servants are entitled to 25 days of annual leave each year, plus an extra day for the King's birthday, which increases to 30 days after five years of service.
In some departments, employees can take up to 31.5 days and carry over as many as 10 days into the next year, leading to significant costs. Treasury data shows that 783 departing staff received a combined £844,021 for unused annual leave last year, while 786 employees claimed £870,491 the previous year.
In the 2022-23 fiscal year, the Treasury paid out £1.4 million to 1,295 staff who left without taking their full holiday entitlement. The Department for Business and Trade recorded particularly high individual payments, with one senior civil servant receiving £30,850 for accumulated leave upon departure last year, and another official leaving with £26,229 in 2022-23.
Twelve departments that provided data collectively spent £9,139,757 compensating 7,979 civil servants for untaken holidays over the three-year period, as exposed by Freedom of Information requests obtained by The Telegraph. This highlights the scale of the practice across Whitehall.
Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP and chairman of the 1922 Committee, expressed deep concerns, stating, 'This is an extreme concern. These people are not taking leave when they should and, without casting aspersions, it seems quite a deliberate decision.' He questioned whether employees were genuinely working while accumulating extensive unused leave, asking if they were 'actually working and not taking holiday, or were they actually doing things as if they were on holiday but not taking their leave when they should have been?'
The MP linked the issue to flexible working arrangements, noting that some civil servants had been permitted to work from locations including the Bahamas and Seychelles. He added, 'We know there were people who were allegedly working from home but were abroad. If they can do the job there, fine, but it does beg the question, what level of productivity is there?'
Office attendance figures from 2022 showed some departments averaging merely 25% daily presence, prompting Jacob Rees-Mogg, then Cabinet Office minister, to leave notes on empty desks encouraging staff to return. Joanna Marchong from the TaxPayers' Alliance, which obtained the data, said, 'Taxpayers will be astonished that millions are being shelled out for civil servants who didn't take their holidays.'
Experts have noted that managers should ensure leave is taken and that taxpayers are not shelling out thousands on exit bonuses. A government spokesman stated, 'Civil servants are encouraged to take all of their leave entitlement – but as is standard practice in private and public sector workplaces, employees can claim payment for a limited number of days if they do not take the full amount of leave they are entitled to.' The government is committed to rooting out wasteful spending across the Civil Service, aiming to save over £550 million by reducing spending on consultancy services in 2024-25 alone.
