Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs' IT boss Steve Lamey has been promoted to chief operating officer.

Deepak Singh is taking over the IT job on an acting basis.

Lamey was formerly head of IT at British Gas. He started at Customs and Excise in 2004, just ahead of the merger with HM's Revenue in early 2005.

He was in the hot seat when the Revenue moved its IT from EDS to Capgemini in late 2004. EDS paid the Revenue £71.5m to settle the dispute over the tax credit system.

The Revenue was also criticised over the tax credit system, although many say it was a problem with the structure of the system as much as the implementation.

Unfortunately, HMRC was unable to officially confirm the personnel changes to the Reg, but didn't try too hard to deny them.

There are reports on Computerworld here (http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=5655), and Accounting Web here (http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=174093&d=1025&h=1073&f=1026&dateformat=%25o%20%25B%20%25Y). ®

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