The Ministry of Justice’s former permanent secretary received an ‘exit package’ of more than £250,000 when he left the post last year, the department’s annual accounts reveal.

Sir Richard Heaton received £262,185 for ‘loss of office’ upon his departure – on top of at least £125,000 in salary, fees and pension-related benefits for 2020/21, according to the MoJ’s annual report and accounts to 31 March 2021.

Heaton left the MoJ in August 2020 after five years as permanent secretary and was replaced by Antonia Romeo, formerly permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade, in January this year.

Richard Heaton

Heaton was paid £262,185 for ‘loss of office’

The MoJ’s accounts also reveal the department received a £72.1 million bill from HM Revenue and Customs for tax and national insurance liabilities arising from errors in assessing the employment status of contractors between 2017/18 and 2020/21.

HMRC found that the MoJ had been ‘careless’ in its application of the off-payroll working rules, according to the report, and imposed a penalty of £15m.

The fine has been suspended for three months subject to the department meeting its notification and filing obligations, a 100% assurance check on all ‘out of scope determinations’ and improved training of hiring managers, conditions the MoJ said it ‘expects to meet’.

Nearly £100m spent in relation to HM Prison and Probation Service’s development of a new case management system as part of the electronic monitoring legacy programme was also written off, the report states.

HMPPS ‘concluded that the public interest would be best served by ceasing the development of the case management system rather than continuing to invest’, causing £98.2m to be included in the financial statements as payments ‘which will not result in future benefit to HMPPS’.