More than £360 million of taxpayers’ money was given to civil servants in redundancy payments in 2024.
The payments, colloquially known as ‘golden goodbyes’ were handed out to 9,500 departing staff at an average sum of £38,000, the Telegraph reports.
Of these payments, 688 departing civil servants were paid in excess of £100,000 as they left their role, up from 427 the year before.
The figures have seen critics blast Downing Street and Whitehall payouts as “out of control”, coming at a time of rising government debt and depleting economic growth forecasts.
Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform, said: “These shocking figures are the latest evidence that Whitehall spending is wildly out of control.
“It is wrong that families and businesses are being forced to suffer the highest tax burden on record as Civil Servants’ trouser bumper golden goodbyes.
Total payouts equaled £362 million, an increase of 14% from the year before and nearly 40% for the period 2019-2020, although a rise in inflation is partly responsible for the increase over this time.
A cash-strapped NHS was the biggest spending government department, with the Department for Health handing out £118 million in departure payments.
The Department for Transport was the second biggest spender, dishing out £80 million whilst the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with £55 million and the Ministry of Justice with £47 million were close behind.
The four departments were responsible for the vast majority of the six-figure payouts, making up 600 of those where recipients pocketed more than £100,000.
Despite the previous Conservative government attempting to control the amount of staff employee by the Civil Service, numbers have risen significantly since the Brexit referendum, rising from 384,000 in 2016 to 513,000 in 2024.
Labour has discussed plans to reduce the number of roles in the Civil Service by 10,000, although this would fail to offset the increase in personnel in the last year which has seen the size of the workforce rise by 13,000.
Some parts of the Civil Service have opened up voluntary redundancy programmes in a bid to reduce the number of employees which could see the amount of similar exit payments increase in the next few years.
Tice added: “Rachel Reeves needs to get a grip on the size of the state immediately, starting with Reform’s plans to slash the number of needless quangos.
“She could do a lot worse than look across the Atlantic for inspiration where Donald Trump is showing the ruthless streak needed to root out waste.”
A government spokesman said: “The Chancellor has been clear she will bear down on waste and improve efficiency after inheriting a £22 billion black hole in the public finances from the previous government. That includes civil servant exit payments.”