Tony Douglas, the current chief executive of Abu Dhabi airports, will be in charge of the MoD's equipment programme and will earn £285,000 in salary, with a £250,000 bonus . A defence chief is to become the highest paid Whitehall civil servant after he was awarded a lucrative pay package to sort out botched reforms. Tony Douglas, who will be in charge of the department’s equipment programme, is to be given a £285,000 salary and a £250,000 performance-related annual bonus, it has been revealed. His basic salary – double what the Prime Minister earns – is 25 per cent more than that of Bernard Gray, the man he will succeed. It is nearly three times a brigadier’s £103,166 salary and 15 times a regular soldier’s pay of £17,945. The fatcat deal comes as 22,000 troops have been axed, along with warships, fighter jets and tanks, under an Armed Forces shake-up. Analysts warn of further devastating cuts to come. Andy Silvester, campaign director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘If there isn’t a dramatic improvement, taxpayers will be rightly furious at the size of this pay packet. 'As in every part of the public sector, his performance in the job must be open to public scrutiny, and any bonuses awarded must be truly earned.’ The Ministry of Defence announced the appointment of Mr Douglas, currently chief executive of Abu Dhabi Airports, on Wednesday. He will start in September and is the latest in a line of senior business figures lured into the public sector with the promise of private sector levels of pay. In a statement released by the MoD, Mr Douglas said he would take pride in providing ‘utmost service quality’ and ‘value to the taxpayer’. He will take over from Mr Gray, who provoked a furore when he charged the taxpayer £23,000 for luxury hotel stays in his first ten months in the job – at a time when his department faced huge budget cuts. He then faced calls to resign after he failed in his efforts to part-privatise the way the MoD buys defence equipment, costing taxpayers millions of pounds. Mr Douglas's salary will be double that of the Prime Minister, three times that of a brigadier, on £103,166, and 15 times a regular soldier’s pay of £17,945 (file image) Mr Gray, a former Labour adviser and businessman who had been appointed to help bring down the military budget, saw his total pay deal rocket to £385,000 last year. The figure – which included his total pay and perks – was up 30 per cent on the previous year. He will remain on a basic salary of between £220,000 and £224,999 for the rest of his tenure this year – and his performance-related bonus could be the same again, or even higher. Appointed in December 2010, Mr Gray was in charge of part-privatising the agency which buys all forces’ kit from pots and pans to fighter jets, but all the bidders pulled out. It was revealed in 2012 that he spent £23,000 on 106 overnight stays at hotels in London and Bristol during his first ten months even though his home was a 60-mile drive from his offices in Whitehall and the equipment arm of the MoD in Bristol. He also had access to a taxpayer-funded official car and driver worth £49,000. Official figures revealed last year that more than 85 MoD staff earn over £100,000 a year.
Tony Douglas will head up MoD's equipment programme from September . Takes over from Bernard Gray, and will be paid 25 per cent more than him . Pay packet is triple brigadier's salary and 15 times that of serving soldier .