New job for discs scandal boss

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Paul Gray quit as chairman of HMRC on November 20, after a junior official lost two computer discs carrying the data in the mail. Despite extensive police searches, there is still no sign of the missing discs, which carry details of all British families with a child under 16.

Channel 4 News revealed that Mr Gray has taken up a short-term post in the Cabinet Office, leading a special project on civil service skill development for Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell. He continues to receive a salary of more than £200,000.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said that Mr Gray's period of notice meant that he would continue to be paid until December 31, whether he was working or not.

His decision to take on the project for Sir Gus represented no extra cost to the taxpayer, the spokesman said.

But the appointment was condemned by MPs who had applauded Mr Gray's decision to pay with his job for the blunder at HMRC.

The Labour chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Committee John McFall told C4N: "It is very surprising, because on the day of the announcement he resigned forthwith and it seemed a proper and courageous thing to do.

"If, as is the case, he is now working in the Cabinet Office for Government and if he is remunerated, then instead of falling on his sword he has fallen on a feather bed."

Liberal Democrat acting leader Vince Cable said: "It is extraordinary cynicism that this senior civil servant apparently resigned in good faith to accept full responsibility for the fiasco in HMRC and now he is back at work again.

"It makes the whole gesture utterly cynical."