838 civil servants paid over£50k costing at least £42m

Civil servants protest over low pay in 2006. Not all are well paid. But some are. Up until April 2012, 838 were paid at least £50k.

In total 838 civil servants were paid over £50k a year up until April 2012. If all were paid £50k the total cost to the people would be £41,900,000.

But many were paid even more. For example, seventy-five civil servants were paid £75k per year. Fifteen were paid over £100k - at a cost of at least £1.5m. Four are paid over £150k; and two were paid over £150k.

Personnel Minister Sammy Wilson said the figures referred to state employees in the 13 Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) departments as well as NICS staff working in the Health and Safety Executive, the Assembly Ombudsman and Commissioner for Complaints, the Attorney General’s office, the Prison Service and the Youth Justice Agency. The figures date back to April 1, 2012, which is the latest set of validated figures available and are based on full time equivalent basic salaries. Due to the fact the data date back to Spring 2012 they do not take account of the number of civil servants leaving.

Mr Wilson recently revealed that in 2011/12 151 civil servants took voluntary redundancy; and in 2012/13 to date 137 have left the civil service voluntarily. In total 288 took voluntary redundancy. No one suffered compulsory redundancy.