To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much (a) his Department and (b) its agencies paid in end-of-year performance bonuses to (i) all staff and (ii) senior Civil Service staff in 2008-09; and how many such payments were made. (275255)

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), FCO Services (Trading Fund), and Wilton Park (Executive agency) made non-consolidated performance-related variable payments totalling £7,214,259 to 4,722 staff in 2008 to reward performance in 2007-08.

Within this total we paid £2,435,100 in non-consolidated performance-related payments to 288 staff in the senior management structure/senior civil service. Almost 30 per cent. of FCO staff in the senior management structure received no performance related variable pay in 2008.

All three organisations use the same payroll and pay moderation process. To separate the payments made by each Department/agency would incur disproportionate cost.