Intel recruitment

Real-life James Bonds raking in huge pay-offs before getting REHIRED

MI6 was made internationally famous by Bond films, currently with Daniel Craig as 007 and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny.

MPs have criticised the recruitment policy as “very poor value for money” and displaying “a lack of adequate skills planning”.

Parliament’s intelligence and security committee said: “While it may always be necessary to re-hire some former staff in exceptional circumstances this should be kept to a minimum given the potentially significant costs involved.’’

The cost of hiring consultants and contractors last year reached £1.2billion – a third of the combined budget of MI6, GCHQ and MI5.

On average they were earning £144,000, which is twice the annual figure for in-house staff.

The intelligence and security committee previously criticised an “expensive” redundancy exercise in 2011/12 during which 111 spy staff were paid to take early retirement.