Deputy Children's Commissioner Sue Berelowitz (pictured) took voluntary redundancy from her £99,333-a-year post on April 30

A controversial child protection chief has quit her job with a six-figure payoff – only to be immediately rehired on almost £1,000 a day.

Deputy children’s commissioner Sue Berelowitz, who was criticised for failing to speak out about sexual abuse by British Pakistani gangs, took voluntary redundancy from her £99,333-a-year post on April 30.

She received a pay-off worth £134,000. But the next day she was rehired as a consultant, leading an inquiry into family child abuse that she had been in charge of in her former role.

The 61-year-old will be paid £960 a day under the new deal and will work for up to nine days a month. It means she will earn almost the same amount as she had been as a full-time employee – for much less work.

Last night, as MPs and victims’ groups described the deal as scandalous, the Treasury launched an inquiry into how it was agreed.

The case illustrated the revolving door culture in Whitehall, the NHS and local councils in which employees their jobs and receive large pay offs, only to be taken back on – often by the same organisation.

The Chancellor last night pledged to crack down on the abuse, putting an upper cap of £95,000 on the amount of redundancy that can be paid.

Keith Vaz, the former head of the Commons home affairs select committee, said the payoff received by Miss Berelowitz was ‘totally unacceptable’.

He added: ‘There is no justification for a public official to receive such a huge sum of money to then continue to do the same work.’ A Treasury spokesman added: ‘It’s wrong for someone to take redundancy payments then be immediately rehired as an external consultant.’

Miss Berelowitz caused controversy in 2012 when she wrote a report in the wake of high-profile abuse cases in Rochdale and Rotherham denying there was a growing number of Asian grooming gangs.

Despite finding that more than a quarter of perpetrators known to the authorities were Asian, Miss Berelowitz said there was no evidence to conclude that there was a particular issue with Asian gangs.

Keith Vaz, the former head of the Commons home affairs select committee, said the payoff received by Miss Berelowitz was ‘totally unacceptable’

Instead, her report – branded ‘hysterical’ and ‘highly emotional’ – said simply that abuse is carried out by men of all backgrounds.

South African-born Miss Berelowitz started out as a speech and language therapist before gaining a masters degree in social work from Sussex University. The mother of two sons, who lives in a £950,000 house in Brighton with her husband, spent nearly five years as deputy director of children services at West Sussex County Council.

But some of its services were later labelled inadequate by Ofsted. And she caused controversy last year by warning against opening up secretive family courts to public scrutiny, claiming children might commit suicide if their names and troubled lives wereknown to the public.

Neither Miss Berelowitz nor the Office of the Children’s Commissioner were last night available for comment.