£10K Bonuses To "Brave" Deskbound Immigration Chiefs.

[Kerosene]

How can this be justified? Virtually £300K of taxpayers' money is being doled out by the Government and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas justifies it by describing managerial staff at the UK Border Agency (UKBA) as being "very brave".

In the face of what exactly?

http://www.dailymail....ves-line-Britain.html

[VHG]

You could almost get an MPs moat cleaned out for that sort of money !

[jake-the-peg]

You have to ask how many share this money - it comes to about £10k each - which is pretty modest compared to industry.

The alternative to bonuses is to decide that everybody should get paid the same regardless of whether or not they do a good job or a lousy one

Bonus's are part of someone's overall package - you could as easilly think of it as penalties for doing a bad job when they don't get paid.

Doesn't seem so outrageous then though!

Thing is there's a dispute about whether or not they actually are doing a good job - the comittee overseeing it has said that they're not fit for purpose (Of course the committee is headed up by Keith Vaaz - who the right whingers would bereate loudly as untrustworty were it not for the fact that they agree with him this time)

It's the conditions for these bonuses that is the real issue they should be tied to an external report like the audit commission to decide whether or not they are merited.

The bravery thing is just plain Mail-mischief

I heard the interview and at the time he was referring to the whole Border Agency not just the managerial staff - so was doubtlessly thinking of those on the ground chasing and aprehending illegal immigrants

[buildersmate]

The Daily Mail claims that this bonus has been given to 29 senior staff.
If this is true (and I doubt that it applies to so few staff), it has to apply to 29 of the most senior staff in UKBA - people who are on the Senior Civil Service pay bands.
The bottom band of this is Deputy Director, at a starting salary of about £75k (Pay Band 1). The top end of Director General level (Pay band 3) is around £150k.
Whilst in no way defending such payments, as Jake points out, it may not be such a large percentage of salary as some folks imagine.
Many of the problems in UKBA (in delivering) are driven by the Justice system that so favours the individual (or family) that it is very difficult to extract these people and export them. They are given every opportunity to benefit from free legal assistance and every step must be absolutely scrupulously followed and faultless, or they cry foul and get to remain for 'another day'.
By way of example, we then get dim-witted politicians bleating that Failed Asylum Seeker families are locked up for too long - 'not fair on the kids'. Too damn right, but if you don't keep them locked up together, you can't export them together. Anyone would think UKBA enjoy forking out for the cost of detaining them.

[anotheoldgit]

I have already posted on this subject.

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question837385.html

[Kerosene]

Apologies to anotheoldgit for my oversight.

[bazwillrun]

and the reason that slimemerchant vaz berates the uk border agency is probably because they arent letting enough of his asian bretheren in