Dominic Cummings’s £140,000-plus salary when he left 10 Downing Street was no more than would be expected for the job he was doing, Boris Johnson’s spokeswoman has said.
There was anger on Tuesday when it emerged that the former senior adviser was handed a pay rise of between £40-50,000 before being forced out last month.
The prime minister’s press secretary Allegra Stratton today said the raise was decided by a Cabinet Office committee chaired by Whitehall’s head of propriety and ethics.
Ms Stratton said she was not aware of Mr Johnson having been told about the increase in pay for his closest adviser, who quit after an internal civil war in 10 Downing Street.
But she told reporters: “It’s the case that Dominic Cummings’ revised salary reflected the fact that up until his departure he was one of – if not the – most important special advisers.
“And the new salary he received was in line with the salary chiefs of staff and people of that rank receive.
“It is not that his new salary took him over and above what you would expect for the kind of role he performed.
“It’s the correct level of salary for the role that Dominic Cummings performed. Dominic Cummings was a valued member of staff to the prime minister.”
The former Vote Leave supremo was earning between £95,000 and £100,000 when he was recruited to 10 Downing Street in 2019.
But he was being paid between £140,000 and £145,000 when he left, according to official documents.
Ms Stratton also defended the payment of £2.7m in severance payments to special advisers who left the government in 2019-20.
“It’s a large sum, but it reflects the fact that it was an unusual year, with the departure of the Theresa May government and the special advisers from her government and then a general election too,” she said.
“We had a large amount of churn in that year and that amount of money – which is large to any normal person – reflects the huge amount of members of staff that came and went.”
