Public servants boost their incomes by £40,000 with second home allowance


NHS perks: David Nicholson

NHS perks: David Nicholson

Senior public officials are being paid a second home allowance that can boost their incomes by £40,000 a year or more, it was revealed yesterday.

A number of officials receiving the perk already draw a higher salary than the Prime Minister.

Those claiming the amount to maintain second homes include senior NHS figures, Whitehall confirmed.

The allowances have also been paid by the Legal Services Commission, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and Transport for London.

They are available to subsidise homes in London for senior officials who live outside the capital - and are around twice the housing subsidies given to MPs.

Unlike MPs' 'additional costs allowance', however, a second home allowance may not be used to pay a mortgage.

Details of the payments - which are worth more than most men and women earn in a year - come at a time of deepening rancour over the pay packets of public servants.

Tory health spokesman Stephen O'Brien: 'Why is it that NHS bosses think it is acceptable to award themselves generous perks like second home allowances and inflation-busting pay rises while hard-working nurses are being forced to take what is effectively a pay cut of 1.9 per cent?'

Two Health Department officials who benefit from the system are NHS chief executive David Nicholson and NHS associate medical director Bill Kirkup.

Mr Nicholson earned between £215,000 and £220,000 in the financial year that ended in March 2008.

In addition he received £37,600 through his second homes allowance. This brought his total pay package to a maximum of £257,600.

Gordon Brown is paid a salary of £189,994.

A nurse

While bosses get even more money, nurses have effectively taken a pay cut

Mr Nicholson is paid the second home allowance even though he was working in London, as head of NHS London, and had a flat in the city when he was appointed head of the organisation in the summer of 2006.

His main home is near Harrogate in North Yorkshire.

Dr Kirkup, who has worked in London for four years, claimed a second home allowance last year that is recorded as being up to £25,800.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'Both Mr Nicholson and Dr Kirkup have claimed second home allowance, which is in line with departmental policy for staff working away from their home for extended periods of time.'

The number of public servants claiming the allowance has not been disclosed.

Among them, however, was Ken Boston, the chief of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority who resigned just before Christmas over the SATS marking scandal. He had been recruited with a £50,000-a-year second home allowance.

One unnamed Legal and Services Commission manager has received £40,800 in perks, including a taxable accommodation allowance.

TfL also subsidises accommodation for senior staff, including the American managing director of London Underground, Tim O'Toole.

Mark Wallace, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'It is excessive to be given massive second home allowances on top of huge salaries and extremely generous pensions.'