Staff at Sellafield will be paid a bonus this month, despite missing out on the benefit at Christmas.

Employees at the nuclear site are normally paid a bonus at Christmas and in May, however in November, the company told staff it would not make the extra payment the following month after it forecast to miss its targets.

At the time, it said the payment could still be issued in May if targets were achieved.

Now the company has confirmed employees will receive £3,250 in this month’s payroll.

This is a reduced payment from the ordinary amount of about £4,000.

The reduction is due to the chief executive officer not being satisfied with safety performance, despite targets having been hit.

Sellafield initially anticipated to pay staff £3,160 due to the safety performance, however this was increased to £3,250 to account for additional efforts being made by the workforce to deliver other projects, including further progress against the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo targets.

One of the main targets Sellafield set itself was to achieve efficiency for tax payers.