DWP staff paid £12.7m in bonuses despite £10bn benefit overpayments
Nearly 200 senior civil servants received average rewards of more than £2,000 each
Madeleine Ross Money Reporter
Madeleine is a money reporter who covers savings and consumer finance. See more
24 February 2026 7:15am GMT
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Civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were handed more than £12.7m in bonuses last year despite overpaying nearly £10bn in benefits.
Nearly 200 senior civil servants in the department, which is responsible for welfare benefits, were handed an average bonus of £2,122.35 in 2024-25, with some receiving both end-of-year and in-year bonuses.
A further 86,757 junior staff members were handed an average bonus of £141.10.
On top of the cash bonuses, an additional £4.4m was paid through 57,785 reward vouchers to junior civil servants, with an average value of £39.44, according to data released under freedom of information rules.
The number of payments jumped from 2023-24, when 91 civil servants were paid an average bonus of £7,250 and £11.2m was paid to 82,526 more junior staff.
Sir Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary, and executives Amanda Reynolds and Catherine Vaughan each received bonuses of between £10,000 and £15,000 last year, according to the DWP annual report.
Whitehall was told earlier this year to cut the number of bonuses being paid to civil servants for “generally doing your job”. Despite this, the size of the Civil Service bonus pot is expected to stay the same.
About 55pc of senior civil servants receive some form of bonus, and just two were sacked for underperformance last year.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Prime Minister, said in January: “From now on, we will award higher but fewer bonuses to those exceptional civil servants who are delivering, innovating and going above and beyond.”
William Yarwood, media campaign manager at The TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It’s beyond parody to see so many staff at the DWP receiving bonuses.
“The DWP is in a crisis, haemorrhaging billions of pounds in fraud and error payments and completely unable to tackle the worklessness crisis blighting our economy.”
In 2024-25, an estimated £9.5bn of benefits was overpaid – 3.3pc of the total bill. That was a slight decrease from the year before, when £9.7bn was overpaid.
Of the 2024-25 figure, £1bn was overpaid as a result of DWP error, official data showed.
The DWP was warned earlier this week by MPs that it must not overuse new bank account snooping powers it had been handed as part of a crackdown on benefits fraud, which will soon be extended to those receiving pension credit.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found that civil servants had not set out how the department would avoid “overreach” as a result of its new powers, which include the ability to recover money directly from bank accounts without a court order.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chairman of the PAC, told The Telegraph the committee “will be on [the DWP’s] backs if it is being used unfairly”, especially if the powers were being misused against pensioners.
A spokesman for the DWP said: “The DWP is the largest government department with over 90,000 employees who work to deliver vital services to millions of people, including benefits, pensions and employment support.
“It is important the Civil Service is able to remunerate its staff in line with the private sector to attract and retain the best talent, as it delivers on the Government’s priorities to create opportunity and reform the welfare system.”
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