‘I’ve been sacked for doing my job. I think I’ve been sacked for doing what the law asks of me and I’ve breached, I’ve fallen down over a clause in my employment contract, which I think is a crying shame.’

That was just one of the bombs that former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration David Neal dropped at his select committee hearing this afternoon. It was never going to be a comfortable hearing, given he was sacked for being awkward to ministers in the reports he was writing on the state of border security (although they would say he was sacked for being awkward by leaking the contents of those reports).

Neal’s argument was that he needed to be awkward to do his job. He said:

Surely it’s part of the job, for me to be effective, for me to make an assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of what’s going on within the Home Office. To a certain degree you’re going to have to make a nuisance of yourself because, and, the tragedy is that, officials, you know professionals, don’t mind criticism. They can actually improve the way that they do business and there’s a number of senior officials in the department welcome reports, even though they can be quite, you know, challenging.

He also told MPs on the Home Affairs Committee that he had been sacked via Teams but added:

Worse than that, for my high-performing team of 30 civil servants, the notification that I was sacked was in the media before my team or I had had the chance to speak to them, which is just shocking. Shocking leadership.’ Neal hadn’t been reappointed to the role, but was sacked before the end of his tenure, and he said he had bound out that the Home Office had supported his reappointment, but that it had been ‘turned down by Number 10.

The government didn’t need an independent inspector to tell it that things weren’t optimum in terms of border control

QOSHE - David Neal vs the Home Office - Isabel Hardman
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David Neal vs the Home Office

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27.02.2024

‘I’ve been sacked for doing my job. I think I’ve been sacked for doing what the law asks of me and I’ve breached, I’ve fallen down over a clause in my employment contract, which I think is a crying shame.’

That was just one of the bombs that former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration David Neal dropped at his select committee hearing this afternoon. It was never going to be a comfortable hearing, given he was sacked for being awkward to........

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