Jul 2008 15

DETAILS OF EX-HMRC BOSS'S REWARDS FOR FAILURE REVEALED3

£306,883 plus £2 million pension pot
FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION

Full details have been released of the massive financial package given to Paul Gray, the former Chairman of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) who resigned over the loss of computer discs containing the personal details of 25 million people. HMRC’s annual accounts, which have just been published on 14 July 2008, reveal that Mr Gray:

  • Earned £120,000 in salary in 2007-08.
  • Received a lump sum pay-off of £137,591 on resigning.
  • Is currently being paid over £7,000 a month until his retirement on 2 August 2008 – in seven monthly payments totaling £49,292 this year.
  • Has a pension pot totalling over £2 million.

That brings his total cash payment from April 2007 to 2 August 2008 to £306,883, plus a pension pot of £2,021,000.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said:

"This is disgraceful – HMRC let down millions of people by losing their private information and we now know that the whole organisation suffers from serious structural and procedural failings. There’s no way that the man who oversaw this chaos should be being rewarded with such a generous severance package. This is a shocking example of the culture of rewards for failure that bedevils the public sector and leads to mistakes being repeated over and over again."

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  • Ripped Off Taxpayer

    Whilst I agree with Matthew when he says – “This is a shocking example of the culture of rewards for failure that bedevils the public sector and leads to mistakes being repeated over and over again”, why should Mr Gray care a sh*t. The Treasury to whom HMRC report have wasted billions on such innovations as the botched implementation of Tax Credits and appear to be ambivalent towards the continuing loss of taxpayers’ money through fraud, overpayment and poor procurement practice. So the mere loss of personal data for 25 million UK residents is trivial in comparison. Parliament singularly fails to hold the Executive to account on such matters and our politicians appear completely without honour despite their Ministerial and Parliamentary responsibility for such endemic waste and poor performance. So yes it is disgraceful that Mr Gray should receive these severance terms – by the TPA target should be those in post who are still responsible for the ongoing waste and under-performance. Of course the other issue which should be addressed is the need to remove Crown exemption from prosecution for DPA and similar offences. It is too easy for senior Civil Servants to ignore good/best practice when the worst sanction that their Department faces is poor publicity. The prosecution and where appropriate jailing of a few senior officials for gross negligence would have a dramatic effect on Whitehall performance!

  • http://thepurplescorpion.blogspot.com John Page

    And see Sue Cameron’s comment and detailed coverage at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/14389c92-52d0-11dd-9ba7-000077b07658.html

  • Michael Corby

    As it is over the limit is he being taxed on his pension pot the way he would be in the private sector?
    And why has nobody else been sacked? Who sends discs these days?
    Have they never heard of file transfer?
    Or if they must send discs, the Post Office Courier service, formally called Datapost, specifically set up for moving computer tapes, originally in the 1970s.