Ex-Ofsted CFO Jon Thompson named as next boss of HMRC

JON THOMPSON, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defence and the former chief financial officer of Ofsted, has been named as the new chief executive of HMRC, the government department has revealed.

Thompson, who was appointed permanent secretary of the MoD in 2012, will begin a handover period with outgoing CEO Lin Homer, who will step down from HMRC in April.

The permanent secretary holds a number of roles within the public sector, serving as the MoD’s director general of finance, director general of corporate services at the Department of Children, Schools and Families and is the finance director of Ofsted.

Edward Troup, HMRC’s tax assurance commissioner and second permanent secretary, has been promoted to executive chair. Before HMRC, Troup was a partner at international law firm Simmons and Simmons.

Chancellor George Osborne said: “These are exceptional appointments to HMRC. We have one of the country’s pre-eminent tax experts and ?an outstanding civil service leader with experience of transforming large organisations.

“Edward’s wealth of experience in tax and Jon’s operational and financial expertise, most recently as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, will prove a huge asset to HMRC as it improves its customer service and continues its vital work to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion.”

Commenting on his appointment, Thompson said: “While it will be a wrench to leave the Ministry of Defence, I am excited to be taking up the challenge of leading the delivery of the department that raises the revenues that pay for the nation’s public services. With 50 million individual and five million business customers, HMRC operates at a scale that few organisations can match.”

Troup, who was tipped by many to succeed Lin Homer, commented: “I am delighted to be appointed as executive chair. It has been a privilege to be tax assurance commissioner over the past three years and I look forward to leading HMRC along the path of transformation that has been established and to ensuring the delivery of the ambitious plan that we agreed with ministers in our Spending Review settlement in November.”

Under the new leadership structure, Troup will chair HMRC’s board and Thompson will chair HMRC’s executive committee and will be the accounting officer for HMRC. The arrangements for assuring large tax settlements in HMRC will be reviewed following Troup’s appointment as executive chair.

This appointment is another example of HMRC appointing a new CEO from within the civil service. Lin Homer was appointed as chief executive while she was permanent secretary of the Department for Transport.