Civil servants handed £30m in vouchers including Nando’s meals despite strike threats and up to half working from home

CIVIL servants have been handed £30million in gift cards to enjoy in shops and restaurants.

Vouchers for the likes of Greggs, Primark and a cheeky Nando’s were dished out over a year for good performance amid pay freezes.

Yet half worked from home and there were huge failings in Whitehall departments.

The £30million bill cost taxpayers a third more this year.

The £29.6million was up on the previous year’s £22.2million and £17.9million in 2018/19.

Workers can spend the “gravy train” vouchers — up to £100 per person — at restaurants and shops.

TaxPayers’ Alliance boss John O’Connell blasted “broken” departments — as some had as few as 49 per cent of staff at desks this month.

He said: “This is a slap in the face as civil servants threaten strikes — and when everything from getting GP appointments to solving crime seems broken.”

“Maybe these vouchers would be reasonable if services were being delivered.

“Families are tightening belts and perhaps public sector top brass should too.”

The Foreign Office was top spender at £9.9million — some of it in cash bonuses.

The Home Office, battling passport backlogs and the small boat crisis, gave £6.6million in vouchers, up from £1.2million in 2018/19.

The Department for Work and Pensions paid out £5.9million yet a third of its 96,000 staff were not in the office according to the latest goverment occupancy stats.

Culture, Trade and the Cabinet Office saw numbers soar.

The total spend is unknown as Health, Environment and Defence refused to give figures. Then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak froze pay across most of the civil service for a year post-Covid.

Labour’s Florence Eshalomi accused the Government of rank double standards.

She said: “As ministers are refusing even to discuss nurses’ pay, we now discover they got around their own pay freeze by giving out record numbers of vouchers.”

Government insiders said the scheme also took place under the last Labour government and said the vouchers were standard practise in the public and private sector.

A Government spokesman said: “Reward and recognition schemes have a positive impact on staff morale.

“All individual awards follow an established approval process to ensure value for money.”