Crackdown on excessive promotions to reduce civil servants' payroll

Jeremy Quinn, Chief Treasurer, leads the performance review. The Telegraph could show civil servants are being cracked down on over-promotions as they put pressure on its skyrocketing payroll.

Downing Street is concerned about how Whitehall has 'inflated' officials' pay levels to circumvent the government's successive attempts to curb wage increases.

Jeremy Quinn, Treasurer General, is leading a performance review that is expected to lead to the introduction of performance-based wages in the future.

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This comes after new data showed that the number of civil servants earning over £100,000 has nearly doubled in the last seven years.

Cabinet Ministers have been alarmed by rising «valuation inflation» as the Mandarins have raised the wage bar to circumvent restrictions on wage hikes.

The number of officials taking home six figures has reached 2050 — an increase of 88% since 2016 — of which 195 now earn more than £150,000.

Top 10 highest paid civil servants

And this despite that the Treasury has imposed pay caps twice in recent years to try to cut the payroll and bring costs under control.

Ministers capped wage growth for mandarins to one percent from 2016. and 2018, and a complete wage freeze in 2021 to try to drive down the cost of Whitehall.

Senior government sources said Downing Street is «taking a very close look» at how to deal with the overuse of raises service to get around the rules.

One of them told The Telegraph that there was «absolutely no reason» officials should be able to use «automatic promotion» as a loophole to increase their pay.

A Whitehall source said: “The fastest way to create a smaller civil service is to increase productivity. That's why we're drawing inspiration from the private sector, rewarding high achievers and learning how AI can do basic things. The civil service must be integrated into the modern world.”

Under the performance-based pay proposals, most of the total salary of civil servants will be related to performance bonuses. Ministers hope this will mean that, over time, officials' incomes will be linked to the results they achieve, not to the level of their wages.

Clearly, Mr. Quinn is keen to ensure that any measure productivity doesn't become a tick exercise that rewards filling out forms.