A total of 121 civil servants were sacked by the state in 2014 for ‘serious infringements of integrity’ rules, the Financieele Dagblad says on Tuesday.

A further 163 officials faced disciplinary measures, and some 1,000 ‘incidents’ relating to the integrity of civil servants were recorded, the paper says. It obtained the figures using freedom of information legislation.

The national government has a total workforce of some 109,000 full-time jobs spread over 10 ministries. The issues leading to staff being disciplined ranged from misbehaviour and abusing their position to theft and fraud.

The paper says the number of justice ministry and prison staff to be sacked – 40 of the total 121 – is particularly high. Seven of them are said to have had ‘unacceptable contact with prisoners’ and in four cases officials had smuggled ‘contraband’ into prisons.