Met Office Staff Given Record Bonuses Despite String of Forecast Failures

It’s sunshine all round at the Met Office after staff walked away with £8.1 million in bonuses last year despite a string of bungled forecasts. The Telegraph has more.

It means virtually all the agency’s 2,500 employees were given an extra £285 every month as a performance-related payment.

Over the last five years, staff have been given a total of £31.5 million in bonuses.

The figures, obtained in a freedom of information request, come despite a series of weather forecast failures.

In November, the Met Office came under fire for only issuing a yellow weather warning when parts of Wales ended up under flood-water when struck by Storm Bert.

The same month, it issued an apology after its weather app warned people of “severe” hot weather when the temperature was just 4°C. The problem was blamed on a test warning going live by mistake.

In August, the Met Office was condemned for failing to correctly forecast thunderstorms that hit the south of England after suggesting the severe weather would be limited to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Prof Penny Endersby is paid £145,000 per year

The Met Office is run by Prof Penny Endersby, who is paid £145,000 per year. The agency’s accounts state her bonus doubled last year from £10,000 to £20,000.

Five other members on the Met Office’s executive board were also given bonus payments last year worth £15,000.

Bosses at the Met Office scrapped the direct link to forecast accuracy in its 2018 Corporate Plan and say despite it feeding into their “overall priorities” there is now “no single monetary value assigned to that measure alone”.

Worth reading in full.

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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
6 months ago

The workings of the state are truly wondrous.

NeilParkin
6 months ago

Well deserved for peddling the pseudo science. Bravo.!

Dinger64
6 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Got there before me, rewards for inaccuracies!

kev
kev
6 months ago

Easy to reward failure when its someone else’s money and you have no accountability.

JXB
JXB
6 months ago
Reply to  kev

And you won’t find anyone disagreeing with the climate hoax when their pay and bonuses depends on it.

James Leary #KBF
6 months ago
Reply to  JXB

AND the pension. Which they won’t get unless they do as they’re told.

Solentviews
Solentviews
6 months ago

The bonuses are for continuing to spread ‘Project Fear II’, nothing else. Most of the staff will realise this knowing £300 pm is effectively hush money.

Art Simtotic
6 months ago

As explained a century ago by the old-school American wiseguy, Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”

NeilofWatford
6 months ago

They’re doing a brilliant job promoting the climate scam, thus the perks.

For a fist full of roubles

I can understand why people in the private sector get bonusses when their performance contributes to increased profits, but in the public sector the concept of getting a bonus for simply doing your job is a kick in the teeth to all taxpayers.

Gezza England
Gezza England
6 months ago

When I worked for the City of London I got a bonus for a couple of years. I just did what I was paid for. For me the real bonus was in being accepted for flexible retirement which was taking pension over 7 years early but at an unreduced rate – ie same as if I was 67.

James Leary #KBF
6 months ago

I’m a fully qualified Met man. I used to draw the synoptic charts by hand from weather site returns before they started inventing them.

I can produce anything you like. Show me the money!!