Britain is paying professional aid workers up to £1,000 a day. David Cameron has been criticised for ramping up aid spending . Britain is paying professional aid workers up to £1,000 a day to work in Africa and Asia as part of a huge push to meet government targets on aid spending, it was claimed last night. Spending on consultants has doubled to £1.4billion over the past four years and now makes up more than ten per cent of all foreign aid spending, an investigation revealed. Hundreds of ‘team leaders’ working on aid projects earn at least £120,000 a year once the costs of their expenses, security and accommodation are taken into account, an investigation found. Daily rates of between £800 and £1000 are commonplace, the Times newspaper claimed. The revelations will return attention to Britain’s growing aid budget, which now accounts for some £12 billion of public spending a year. The Coalition government committed to spending 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid – and even passed legislation to enshrine the target into law. That target means that aid spending will increase every year if the economy grows, even if other areas of government spending face swingeing cuts. David Cameron has been criticised for ramping up aid spending while slashing funding for the police, defence and justice. The details of consultant spending sparked outrage among backbench Tories who have opposed the aid target. Philip Davies, who is Tory parliamentary candidate for Shipley said: ‘When people think of overseas aid they think of people who have aid their homes damaged by an earthquake, a hurricane or a tsunami. They don’t expect to be lining the pockets of consultant fat cats. ‘This is what happens when you are judged only by how much you are spending. How you actually spend the money becomes immaterial. It leads to grotesque waste and overspending.’ The Department for International Development said it uses private sector companies as well as charities to deliver aid projects if they were the best placed to do the job. But officials insisted that spending on external consultants giving advice to the department had fallen. A spokesman said: ‘DfID has slashed spending on external consultancy and advisory services by 98.9 per cent since 2009, down to just £200,000 last year, but we rightly continue to use the private sector where it delivers aid projects on the ground that are effective and the best value for money.’ Afghan widows queueing up and waiting to receive aid in Kabul, Afghanistan . The Times quoted anonymous ‘insiders’ claiming that private firms were making huge profits of 50 per cent on aid projects. A report in January by the National Audit Office found civil servants at the department went on a £1billion spending spree over eight weeks to hit the government target. Money was spent at the end of last year on humanitarian programmes but MPs questioned whether the rate of spending meant it achieved value for money. The coalition aid commitment – meant Dfid was required to spent some £11.46 billion in 2013.. But in June that year officials realised they would have to spend another £2.7billion in November and December to hit the target. Months later that target was revised up again by another £1billion over those two months, taking the total to £3.7billion. The NAO report said the burst of spending that raised concerns the money was not used wisely. It said: “Given the limited time available the department could only choose activities where funds could be paid out during 2013. It may therefore have missed opportunities to get the best outcomes from this spending.”
Spending on consultants doubled to £1.4billion over the past four years.
Daily rates of between £800 and £1,000 are reportedly commonplace.
David Cameron has been criticised for ramping up aid spending.