LONDON (AFX) - Sir John Gieve, deputy governor of the Bank of England, is being pressed to resign following revelations of financial mismanagement at the Home Office, where he was permanent secretary, The Independent on Sunday reported.
The newspaper said the top civil servant, who moved from the Home Office to the Bank in January, is already under pressure as a result of the lost prisoner scandal, where it emerged that more than 1,000 foreign nationals had been released from British prisons without being considered for deportation.
It said now a National Audit Office review of the Home Office's accounts for 2004-05 has revealed errors 'so wild that they beggared belief.'
The newspaper noted that information produced when Gieve was called to give evidence before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday showed that the NAO found that problems with the Home Office's new computer system, Adelphi, had led it to get its sums massively wrong.
It said the gross value of the debits and credits recorded by the Home Office totaled 26,527 bln stg -- 1.3 times the GDP of the entire planet and 2,000 times the Home Office budget.
When this error was eradicated, the Home Office still had a 1 bln stg discrepancy in its budget -- 5 pct of the total, the newspaper said.
It quotes Richard Bacon, Conservative MP and member of the PAC, as saying: 'It is an eloquent comment on the nature of public appointments by this government that Sir John can leave a catastrophic mess at the Home Office and walk into a job as deputy governor of the Bank of England. This is the sort of thing you'd expect in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.'
The newspaper also quoted The Bank of England as saying it was not aware of the problem at the Home Office before Gieve took up his role. It said the Bank would not comment on whether he might have to resign. newsdesk@afxnews.com jdd/bam COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2005. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News. AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited