Ex-HMRC Staff Refusing to Hand Back 29 Smartphones and Laptops Every Month – Guido Fawkes

Ex-HMRC Staff Refusing to Hand Back 29 Smartphones and Laptops Every Month

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The Guido FoI unit has been diligently tracking how many devices civil servants have been losing or having stolen, as well as how many devices departed staff have refused to hand back. As co-conspirators may have guessed the taxman has been taking the biscuit…

From January 2024 to February 2025 departing HMRC staff have held on to 335 taxpayer-funded laptops and 76 taxpayer-funded phones at a total of 411 devices. About 400 laptops and 50 phones are returned successfully each month in that period. Since Labour got into power the average device non-return figure has shot up from 22 per month to 35 per month – a 59% increase. In February alone a ridiculous 92 laptops and 25 smartphones weren’t handed back…

That’s something for tax minister James Murray to look at. Seeing as HMRC is losing 43 devices per month that’s a total of 72 taxpayer-funded pieces of expensive tech disappearing every four weeks. Happy to take Brits’ cash though…