Whitehall savings a sham - Tories

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Civil servants are being paid almost £50m a year despite having no role and they should be found work or fired, the Conservatives have said.

Figures obtained by the party showed there were 1,743 permanent workers classified as "staff without post" across government departments.

The Tories said government claims to have cut waste were a "sham".

But the Cabinet Office said the figures included people returning from career breaks or on maternity or sick leave.

Those assigned a new full-time role - many at lower pay grades - were also among the numbers, a spokeswoman added.

'Forking out'

The Ministry of Defence had the largest number of staff without posts on 830, followed by the Department for Work & Pensions with 368, and the Foreign Office with 212.

Shadow cabinet office minister Francis Maude said: "Gordon Brown's claims to have cut waste in Whitehall have been exposed as a sham.

"Taxpayers are forking out £50m a year to bankroll an invisible army of civil servants who literally have no job. Labour ministers are treating the civil service like a glorified job-creation scheme."

He added that "the government should either abolish these non-jobs, or freeze recruitment elsewhere and get these people back into productive work and restore their dignity".

The Conservatives' calculations are based on the average wage bill cost of a civil servant, including national insurance and pension contributions, of £28,622 - giving an annual bill of £49.9 million.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said the figures did not show people were getting paid for doing nothing, as they would often be asked to carry out interim work until they returned to a permanent posting.

They were also simply a snapshot and could fluctuate greatly, she added.