A Foreign Office chief who stayed on holiday during the shambolic evacuation of Afghanistan received a £260,000 payoff.
Top diplomat Philip Barton was handed the bumper ‘golden goodbye’ when he ‘retired’ from his £205,000 a year job in January.
Sir Philip was heavily criticised over the chaos as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021.
During a bruising session with the Foreign Affairs Committee that year, the mandarin admitted that if he ‘had my time again’ he would not have remained in the Dordogne for 11 days after the fall of Kabul.
Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab both returned from breaks when that happened, but Sir Philip was not back until the day civilian evacuations ended.
He insisted cover arrangements were in place and he had ‘stayed in touch with the department all the way through the period’.
Top diplomat Philip Barton was handed the bumper ‘golden goodbye’ when he ‘retired’ from his £205,000 a year job in January
British, Turkish and US military help a child during the evacuation of Kabul in 2021
British and US personnel in action during the evacuation of Kabul
The latest Foreign Office accounts revealed the ‘voluntary exit compensation payment’ for Sir Philip
A report published in 2022 said the committee had ‘lost confidence in the Permanent Under-Secretary, who should consider his position’.
The cross-party MPs said: ‘The fact that the department’s top civil servant did not return until the civilian evacuation was over, while staff across the department struggled to implement a poorly-planned evacuation process under intense pressure, is difficult to understand and impossible to excuse.’
However, Sir Philip – who had been in the post since 2020 – remained until after Labour took power, when he was replaced by Theresa May’s former Brexit envoy Oliver Robbins.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy expressed thanks to Sir Philip ‘for his many years of dedicated public service, in particular his leadership as (Permanent Under-Secretary) and his support through the recent political transition’.
In the latest departmental accounts, published yesterday, the non-executive directors referred to Sir Philip’s ‘retirement from the FCDO earlier this year’.
The document also said: ‘Sir Philip Barton received a voluntary exit compensation payment of £262,185 under the terms of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS)…’
The Foreign Office has been contacted for comment.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Taxpayers will be furious at this reward for failure in the Foreign Office.
‘Golden goodbyes of this size always infuriate working Brits, but particularly when the person receiving it has been responsible for such a disaster.
‘A cap of £95,000 should be placed on all exit payments in the future.’
The accounts also disclosed that Sir Oliver is being paid £235-240,000 – around £30,000 more than Sir Philip.
After leaving the civil service in 2019, Sir Oliver worked for Goldman Sachs and a strategic advisory firm.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy expressed thanks to Sir Philip ‘for his many years of dedicated public service, in particular his leadership as (Permanent Under-Secretary) and his support through the recent political transition’
