This means almost £2.5m per week – or more than £350,000 per day – went on performance-related pay for government workers during 2008/2009.

Some enjoyed payouts of almost £50,000 – twice the threshold of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s “bonus tax” on bankers introduced earlier this month.

The Liberal Democrats described the figures as “ridiculous”, while the Tories said bonuses should be linked to saving taxpayers’ money, and campaigners accused the civil service of being out of touch.

Analysis of parliamentary questions and departmental accounts by the Press Association found the Whitehall bonus pot for 2008/2009 added up to £129,393,139.50 – about £2 for every man, woman and child in the UK. The figure was made up of end-of-year payments and rewards for performance.

The highest-spending department was the Ministry of Defence, which has been heavily criticised for handing out £53m in 2008/09, while the Department for Work and Pensions paid out more than £23m with a further £6m allocated for in-year rewards.

The Department for Transport set aside £12m for bonus payments and the Foreign Office spent £7.6m rewarding staff.

The bonuses are termed “non-consolidated performance payments”, said to reward “exceptional” performance and link pay to delivery across the year.

Earlier this month Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to curb a “culture of excess” in public sector pay. Top mandarins have already agreed to give up bonuses and accept below-inflation pay rises this year to show that the Government is tightening its belt in the recession, and public sector pay settlements have been capped at 1% from 2011. But figures show some bonus pots for 2009/2010 are bigger than last year.

The Foreign Office has allocated £8.2m compared to £7.6m in 2008/09, the Department for International Development’s spending could rise from £640,000 to £800,000, and the MoD is planning an increase of almost £6m.

LibDem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: “When the whole bonus culture is being discredited, it’s ridiculous for civil servants to be awarded these kinds of payouts. At a time when people up and down the country are tightening their belts, it is insensitive in the extreme.”

The Conservatives said some departments had underperformed and should not have paid out bonuses. Shadow cabinet office minister Francis Maude said: “There should be no rewards for failure. Performance-related pay in Whitehall should be linked to increasing efficiency and rewarding civil servants who save taxpayers’ money.”

Taxpayers’ Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliot added: “There’s no way civil servants, or any public sector workers, should receive bonuses this year. They have singularly failed to cut back and it’s time they started to make sacrifices like the rest of us.”

A civil service spokesman said bonus pots were increasing after a recommendation from the Senior Salaries Review Body that a larger proportion of senior civil service pay be linked to performance and paid out only if objectives are exceeded.

“The average civil servant earns £22,520 per year and most do not receive any performance-related pay award. For senior civil servants, 8.6% of their

salary is set aside and paid only if they exceed tough, pre-agreed and delivery-based objectives. It is less of a bonus for doing well and more of a pay cut if targets are not met.”