Dame Lowell Goddard received £80,000 in pay and allowances when she quit as head of the inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Office has confirmed.

The New Zealand high court judge received a severance payment of two months’ salary and flights home when she resigned 18 months after being hired by the then home secretary, Theresa May.

Goddard quit in August, saying the inquiry had been beset by a “legacy of failure”. Her resignation came the day after the Times reported that she had spent three months on holiday or abroad in her first year in the job.

The wide-ranging inquiry into historical sex abuse was launched in July 2014 in the wake of allegations of cover-ups of abuse by Jimmy Savile and the Lib Dem MP Cyril Smith.

Goddard’s appointment in February 2015 made her Britain’s highest-paid civil servant, with an annual salary and allowances of almost £500,000. The inquiry also spent £75,000 on travel to and from New Zealand for Goddard and her family, a financial report published by the inquiry shows.

She has been replaced by the child protection expert Prof Alexis Jay, who previously chaired a report into widespread abuse and grooming in Rotherham. Jay will earn £185,000 a year.

The Guardian understands that the inquiry’s lead counsel, Ben Emmerson, did not receive a severance payment after he resigned last month. Emmerson quit after being suspended due to concerns about his leadership of the inquiry’s legal team, but abuse survivor and campaigner Ian McFadyen described the departure as a “devastating blow for survivors”.

Goddard was the third candidate appointed by May to lead the inquiry. The previous two candidates, retired judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and former lord mayor Dame Fiona Woolf, both quit after survivors’ groups complained about perceived links to the establishment that they would be investigating.

The inquiry was initially expected to take five years but has yet to start holding hearings, and there have been suggestions it could run for as long as a decade.

As prime minister, May has insisted the inquiry is not “too broad” in its scope.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The independent inquiry has a vital role to play in exposing the failure of public bodies and other major organisations to prevent child sexual abuse.

“We owe it to victims and survivors to get to the truth and the independent inquiry is continuing its vital work.”

Fay Maxted, chair of the Survivors Trust, an umbrella body for groups for survivors of rape and sexual abuse, said: “My real concern is that we are losing sight of the hundreds of institutions – schools, churches, scout clubs – and children abused in home environments, who have been failed by services that should have protected them.”

She added: “There are many thousands of survivors who will need support, whilst the voluntary sector has to constantly fight for funding to provide specialist support and counselling.”