Calls for foreign aid to be spent on nurses and police
The wage bill at the foreign aid department has soared by 40 per cent in seven years.
It now stands at £133million â€" £38million up on 2010 when David Cameron took power.
His target of diverting 0.7 per cent of national income abroad saw spending reach £13.3billion last year.
The huge sums were revealed as a Tory former minister said part of the aid budget should instead go on pay rises for police and nurses.
In 2010-2011, the Department for International Development had 1,822 staff. By this April this had leapt to 2,208, when other ministries were axeing jobs and slashing budgets.
Half of the 386 extra employees have been added since Priti Patel took charge of the ministry last Ju ly.
Half of the 386 extra employees have been added since Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel took charge of the ministry last July
The pay bill on her watch has risen by 7 per cent. Dfid hands out the highest salaries in Whitehall, averaging £53,000 a head, and it is one of only three of all 19 government departments to keep recruiting.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North East Somerset, said: ‘When the nation’s finances are under such strain it is troubling that it costs so much to spend taxpayers’ money.
‘Overseas aid seems to be the department of spendthrifts.’
Alex Wild, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance lobby group, said: ‘For all the talk of austerity, some parts of the public sector continue to have vast amounts of taxpayers’ money lavished upon them.
‘It is absurd that the Government has taken the tax burden to a 30-year high while still borrowing more than £6.5million an hour, only to spend the proceeds on wasteful projects overseas and higher salaries for Dfid staff.’
When Mr Cameron became prime minister £8.45billion was being spent on international development annually.
The outlay rose 57 per cent to £13.3billion last year, £700 a household.
Because spending is linked to national output â€" the budget will grow in line with the economy even as other departments face cuts.
Miss Patel called for Dfid to be abolished before she became International Development Secretary. But she launched an impassioned defence of the aid target in the run-up to the election when it appeared the 0.7 per cent target might be watered down.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North East Somerset, said: ‘When the nation’s finances are under such strain it is troubling that it costs so much to spend taxpayers’ money.' He is pictured speaking in the Commons in 2015
This week she tried to head off criticism by promising a crackdown on world bodies, charities and suppliers squandering aid money.
She said she would impose stricter controls on daily allowances which can run as high as £600 per person as well as expenses run up by administering aid programmes.
She said performance contracts would scrutinise grants to bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the UN. While Whitehall has endured the biggest cuts since the Second World War over the past six years, foreign aid has largely remained untouched.
Many Tory MPs and peers believe minister s should drop the 0.7 per cent spending pledge.
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Mr Halfon said: 'We face a particular difficulty in our country where many public sector workers have had to struggle, particularly those on lower pay.
The overseas aid budget should be used to fund a pay rise for public sector workers, a Tory former minister said yesterday.
Robert Halfon, who was sacked from his frontbench role by Theresa May after the election, said the 1 per cent pay cap should be scrapped.
This should be funded by sacrificing the ‘sacred cow’ of the aid budget to ease the burden on taxpayers and benefit the lowest-paid state workers, said the Tory MP for Harlow.
‘People recognise that many public sector workers have had to struggle over the past few years,’ he told the BBC. ‘We have to look, potentially, at sacred cows.
‘What I’m suggesting is that we look at some of the overseas aid budget, which is going to be over £13billion in the coming year.’
Mr Halfon insisted he was passionate about overseas aid but added: ‘We face a particular difficulty in our country where many public sector workers have had to struggle, particularly those on lower pay.
‘So I think temporarily, while the economy remains difficult, while we get down the deficit, we need to look at sacred cows like the overseas aid budget and use that to help the lowest-paid public sector workers.’
Mr Halfon, a former apprenticeships minister, said the extra cash could help boost the salaries of teachers, nurses and police officers.
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A Dfid spokesman said: ‘The International Development Secretary is leading a robust efficiency re view which is estimated to save £500million by 2019/20, higher than the target set in the 2015 spending review.
‘These savings will be made through reform of procurement and commercial practices, estates, IT and pay.
‘The department has some of the lowest overheads in Whitehall and has already reduced admin costs by a third to deliver the best value for money for the taxpayer.’
The Mail has repeatedly highlighted how foreign aid cash can be wasted. Miss Patel has claimed ‘to date there hasn’t been one’ newspaper article about foreign aid ‘that’s been 100 per cent accurate’.
But when the newspaper asked her to point out any errors in seven stories published over the past year, she could not do so. In January, we revealed that more than £1billion has been given away in straight cash handouts over the past five years.
Despite warnings of fraud, officials have quietly quadrupled expenditure on cash and debit cards that recipients can spend at will. The budget has soared from £53million in 2005 to an annual average of £219million in the period 2011-15.
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