Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many Instant Rewards of what value were given to his Department's officials in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.

An element of the Department’s overall pay bill for staff below the Senior Civil Service (SCS) is allocated to payments related directly to performance. There are two types of award:

1. Annual performance awards, that reward staff based on their annual performance rating.
2. In-year awards that recognise strong performance in particularly demanding tasks or situations. These can be in the form of cash payments or vouchers.

These non-consolidated, non-pensionable one-off payments are used to drive high performance in the department and do not add to future pay bills.

Details of the number and cost of in-year awards in 2013, and until the end of September in 2014 are contained in table below.

* Jan – Sept 2014