Reinforcing a culture of failure

I was always under the impression that if there were a bonus scheme available, that it is a reward for success. I'm also pretty jaundiced towards any bonus schemes in the public sector as they seem to measure success by an entirely different criteria than the private sector, plus they pay out their bonuses from taxpayers money.
So this made my blood boil...
Express.

STAFF bonuses at the Met Office rocketed by a third to £3.3million last year – despite failing to predict the coldest winter in memory.
Workers at the Government-owned organisation were handed the perks despite a series of forecasting failures.
The big freeze of December 2010, the coldest in over 100 years, saw Britain grind to a halt, costing billions of pounds and jeopardising the recovery.
But staff still pocketed £3,368,000 in bonuses during 2010-11, up 30 per cent from the £2,593,000 handed out the year before. In the past five years, Met Office staff have been awarded £13.9million in bonuses – with last year’s payments averaging around £1,800 between 1,900 people.
Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson, who obtained the information, said: “It’s a bit ironic that, in the week the Prime Minister has talked about ending the bonus culture and bonuses for failure, a Government body has awarded staff a 30 per cent hike in bonuses.’’ Business Minister Ed Davey, whose department oversees the Met Office, said payouts were “in line with reward principles”.

This strikes me as paying out a bonus simply for doing your job and doesn't seem dependent on any results, after all the Met Office are still convinced that Global Warming Climate Change Global Climate Disruption is actually happening and is something humanity can do something about. Which is why their long term models are no longer published owing to the fact that they'd become a laughing stock over the sheer inaccuracy of them. In a sense here, what is happening is the reinforcing of a culture of failure after all, next day temperature predictions are only 87 per cent right and its daily forecasts are only right six days out of seven.Which essentially means that there's only a one in seven chance of the forecast being right on the actual day they pronounce it! With all the equipment they have you'd expect a somewhat higher percentage than that. As for the long term forecasts, well unsurprisingly enough they don't count in the bonus scheme as they are for research purposes only which rather suggest that the weather does not still co-operate with their climate models. Not that this or last years weather was particularly easy to predict, certainly the seasons seem slightly out of kilter with an unusual mildness over the last 3 months though it was pretty cold this morning with the first frost of the year in Kent.
A bonus scheme is only really suitable in a company that makes money not in the public sector, the criteria for success is not judged in the same way nor are the business models even slightly similar. If Cameron et al want to go after the private sector and their bonuses, they really ought to clean up their own acts first.