I had concerns about the length of heart operations for babies on my first day as a consultant in Bristol in 1988, writes an anaesthetist who ‘blew the whistle’. By 1990, I had written to the chief executive about the high death rate for babies having heart surgery, a move that provoked a hostile response.
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Hospitals in the UK face pressure in Parliament to stop silencing whistleblowers by forcing them to sign ‘gagging’ clauses. One Conservative MP, Stephen Barclay, is demanding an end to the practice that allows health trusts, which run hospitals and provide other services, to prevent employees from raising safety concerns.
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UK prime minister David Cameron has intervened in the row over senior civil servants being paid ‘off payroll’. Writing after the ‘Whitehall tax scandal’ was exposed by Exaro, he wrote a letter saying that he was taking the issue “very seriously” and that it was “never acceptable” for public officials to avoid paying tax.
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Exaro’s revelation that tax avoidance is rife among more than 2,000 handsomely-paid senior civil servants is shocking indeed. What is of no surprise, however, is the delay in the coalition government’s response to the scandal, writes Andy Slaughter, Labour MP and shadow justice minister, who has already led one parliamentary debate over the issue.
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More than 2,000 senior UK public officials are paid ‘off payroll’ in an attempt to minimise their tax bill, a Treasury review has revealed. Exaro has obtained a confidential letter – sent by Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, to George Osborne, chancellor – that also proposes to stamp out the practice in Whitehall within three months.
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Rupert Murdoch does not do “subtle”. He told us so at this week’s hearing of the Leveson inquiry into media ethics. It is probably the only untruth that I could spot during his marathon sitting over the past two days, writes the former News of the World chief reporter.
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Exaro’s Editor-in-Chief, Mark Watts, discusses ‘freedom of information’ on LBC. He was co-founder of the FOIA Centre, a specialist research company that helps people use the Freedom of Information Act. He talks with LBC presenter Ian Collins about how Exaro has used the act, and why civil servants want to weaken the law.
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Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has quietly abandoned his plan to curb people’s right to a lawyer when in police custody. Andy Slaughter, Labour’s shadow justice secretary, said that the U-turn had been made as quietly as possible to avoid embarrassment. But critics see it as a humiliating climbdown for the government.
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Exaro’s Editor-in-Chief, Mark Watts, discusses James Murdoch’s testimony to the Leveson inquiry into Press ethics with media commentator Steve Hewlett and industry analyst Claire Enders. Adam Boulton chairs the discussion on ‘Boulton & Co’ on Sky News after this morning’s evidence from Murdoch jnr, the former chairman of News International and BSkyB.
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Senior civil servants in the UK are trusted to make the right decisions by only a third of their own staff, it can be revealed. A survey by the Cabinet Office found that only one third of civil servants had confidence in the decisions made by the top officials running their departments.
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Jobs agency A4e is being lined up for another major government contract despite being at the centre of a fraud investigation, Exaro can reveal. Ministers have made the company – owned by prime minister David Cameron’s fallen ‘family champion’ Emma Harrison – the preferred bidder to take over a sensitive Equality and Human Rights Commission helpline.
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Ministers are due to announce the findings of the inquiry into civil servants’ pay and contracts up to a month later than expected. A Whitehall source told Exaro that it is likely to be the end of April before the results of the review – announced at the beginning of February by Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury – will be revealed.
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Former business minister Gareth Thomas is challenging ministers over what he says were misleading replies to Parliament over civil servants’ contracts. The Department of Health is particularly under pressure over its response to a parliamentary question denying that any of its officials were paid via personal-service companies rather than through the payroll.
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One NHS finance director was paid more than half a million pounds through a personal-service company rather than via the staff payroll, Exaro can reveal. Robert Clarke was paid at least £534,000 over three years as director of finance at NHS Professionals, which also paid a former chief executive, Neil Lloyd, as a consultant.
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Around 3,000 people working for the BBC are paid through personal-service companies, the broadcaster has admitted. It said that five BBC people earn more than £150,000 a year without having tax deducted at source, as the row over public officials working ‘off payroll’ spreads.
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Beleaguered student-loans chief Ed Lester is to close the company that enabled him to bank his £182,000 annual pay package and reduce his tax bill. Exaro can reveal that the chief executive of the Student Loans Company is seeking to close Placepass, a company registered to his home at a gated estate on a leafy island in the River Thames.
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Whitehall mandarins are trying to dismantle a parliamentary watchdog whose attempts to make civil servants accountable have provoked fury, a senior MP claims today. Margaret Hodge is due to deliver a provocative speech at lunchtime at the Policy Exchange, a centre-right think-tank, saying that MPs have been “rattling the cage” of Britain’s most powerful civil servants.
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Whitehall’s clash with MPs over how they grill civil servants in Parliament is set out in letters revealed in full by Exaro today. Margaret Hodge, chairwoman of the House of Commons public accounts committee, is due to give a speech tomorrow about the constitutional stand-off at Policy Exchange, the centre-right think-tank.
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MPs today demanded an end to the “offensive” practice of allowing senior public officials to minimise tax – in a second parliamentary debate on the issue. Andy Slaughter, Labour MP and shadow justice minister, condemned what he described as “a new elite in the public sector” – following an Exaro investigation.
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Whitehall mandarins have declared war on MPs in a constitutional stand-off over Parliament’s efforts to hold civil servants to account. Exaro has seen an extraordinary exchange of letters in which MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee – and its chairwoman, Margaret Hodge – are accused of publicly humiliating civil servants.
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For graduates, there can be no cause of greater irony than Exaro’s revelations about the chief executive of the Student Loans Company. He had an ‘off-payroll’ job that enabled him to save tax. The president of the National Union of Students condemns the “hypocrisy” over Ed Lester’s ‘tax efficient’ arrangement.
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Organs from UK donors are still being given to private patients despite a government pledge to end the practice. In an interview with Exaro, the head of a taskforce set up by the previous Labour government to tackle organ shortages criticised the failure to stop the use of organs for private transplants.
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Civil servants were worried about whether a senior public official should be paid through a personal-service company to allow him to reduce his tax. The latest disclosures of e-mails between mandarins increase the pressure on the government to stamp out the practice that enables senior civil servants to minimise tax on their earnings.
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Around Whitehall, the new witch-finder generals have been searching for clues to expose the new ‘devils’ in our midst. The managing director of the professional organisation that represents freelancers and contractors, known as PCG, warns against demonising the role of ‘one-person companies’ in the UK economy.
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Britain’s leading nuclear regulator has been sacked after he was identified as being paid through a private company rather than via the staff payroll. Paul Brown, chief operating officer at the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), is furious over the axing of his contract because, he says, he has been wrongly targeted.
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Police officers suspected of serious criminal behaviour are almost three times more likely to have their cases thrown out by prosecutors than for ordinary citizens. The Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute more than two-thirds of cases referred to it by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, according to figures obtained by Exaro.
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Ministers are extending the inquiry into how many UK public officials beyond Whitehall are not paying tax at source. Exaro can reveal that the Treasury-ordered review is to be extended to cover people working outside central government, in health authorities and trusts, local government – and even the BBC.
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Proposals to allow the Student Loans Company’s chief executive to stay off its payroll were approved by the UK’s then cabinet secretary. E-mails between Whitehall officials obtained by Exaro reveal why Sir Gus O’Donnell was “content” with what one internal memo described as the “tax efficient” arrangements.
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MPs challenged ministers in an emergency debate today in Parliament over a special tax deal for a top civil servant, following an Exaro investigation. Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, announced to MPs that the government was scrapping the arrangements for the Student Loans Company’s chief executive.
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In its coalition agreement, the government stated it would “make every effort to tackle tax avoidance, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals.” It seems, following an investigation by Exaro, that the Liberal Democrat proposals included tax avoidance by senior public-sector employees.
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Ministers approved a contract that enabled the UK’s Student Loans Company to avoid deducting any tax from the pay of its chief executive. Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, ordered his department to “urgently review” the use of such contracts across Whitehall after an Exaro investigation.
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MPs are poised to announce an inquiry into the UK government agency that underwrites billions of pounds of loans to support the country’s exports. The all-party parliamentary group on international corporate responsibility is planning to investigate the activities of the government’s Export Credits Guarantee Department.
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Ministers are planning to back down on proposals to limit people’s right to a lawyer when accused of a crime in the UK. The government is re-drafting the proposed legislation after Lord McNally, justice minister, indicated during a late-night debate in the House of Lords that it was preparing a climbdown over the issue.
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UK health officials have agreed to pay compensation to the family of an organ donor whose heart was mistakenly taken for an operation. The National Health Service has been plagued by problems with computer records on the wishes of would-be donors.
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Government cost cutting is to lead the Foreign Office to quit its historic grade-II listed building in Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall. Its decision raises the prospect that it will sell the £57 million property in central London, the Old Admiralty Building, which once housed the authority responsible for the Royal Navy.
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