Official Receiver staff sacked over sharing case data

Staff at the Official Receiver have been sacked for allegedly sharing details of potential jobs with private sector insolvency practitioners.

The government’s Insolvency Service has confirmed that three people had been dismissed in the wake of an investigation into case data being improperly shared with two insolvency practitioners. It has reported the incident to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the data regulator.

The Insolvency Service has not commented on allegations that information on insolvency jobs had been wrongfully shared by the three staff in return for payment or gifts from insolvency practitioners.

Official receivers are officers of the government’s Insolvency Service and are appointed by the court, often to work through the early stages of personal bankruptcy or corporate liquidation work before they appoint a private sector insolvency practitioner.

Rotas of willing local insolvency practitioners are kept by official receivers for use in selecting a practitioner to be appointed where there is no nomination from creditors. The rota is supposed to ensure fair distribution of cases and there are rules that are meant to ensure the transparency of appointments.

However, a senior industry source, who asked not to be named, told The Times they had reported concerns to the Insolvency Service that staff at the Official Receiver were marketing attractive insolvency jobs to private sector practitioners in return for gifts.

The source claimed there was a wider problem of collusion between civil servants and the private sector over the provision of insolvency work, which had been “going on for decades”.

So-called “creditor services” divisions of insolvency firms, which search for appointments on behalf of their employers, are alleged to be linked to the purported misconduct.

A spokesman for the Insolvency Service said: “We can confirm that three people were dismissed following an investigation into case data being improperly shared with two insolvency practitioners.

“The Insolvency Service takes the security of data extremely seriously, which is why immediate action was taken in this case and these people were dismissed last year.

“We have reported this incident to the Information Commissioner’s Office, who are the relevant prosecuting authority, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the regulatory body for insolvency practitioners.”

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