Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A Labour donor at the centre of an alleged cronyism scandal has been given the top role at Secure Trust Bank.
Ian Corfield, who stepped down as a civil servant at the Treasury in November last year, will take up the role as chief executive designate at Secure Trust later this month before assuming the permanent role in August, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday.
Corfield’s exit from Whitehall followed intense criticism of the government over its close ties to big donors. His appointment last summer was one of several that prompted an inquiry by the regulator of the civil service.
Corfield had donated more than £20,000 to Labour politicians over the decade preceding his Whitehall appointment, including £5,000 to chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Shortly after Labour’s election victory last year, he was appointed as a temporary director of investment to the Treasury. The move caused outrage after it emerged that the watchdog, the Civil Service Commission, had not been informed about his donations and his appointment was made without an open recruitment process.
Corfield had been working as a senior business adviser to the Labour party from January to July last year, according to his LinkedIn biography. Corfield has been contacted for comment.
Directors are among the most senior management in Whitehall, sitting just below directors-general and permanent secretaries. They are also responsible for significant policy areas within the Treasury.
Labour had defended the appointment as “perfectly appropriate” in the wake of opposition criticism, but the backlash prompted Corfield to shift his role from a salaried director to an unpaid adviser to the Treasury. He left just five months later.
A letter from the Civil Service Commission, made public last October after a freedom of information request, confirmed that his appointment was signed off as an “exception” for a time-limited period of 16 weeks ending “no later than 1 November”. Labour had submitted a business case to hire Corfield based on its “urgent need to undertake work to support the development and delivery of its Global Investment summit”, which was held in mid-October.
James Murray, exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said in written answers that Corfield had been “appointed on a short-term basis to carry out urgent work” and a “full recruitment process could not have been completed in the time available”.
Once he becomes chief of Secure Trust, Corfield will step down from his current role at Flint Global, the advisory group led by the former Labour minister James Purnell.
Corfield’s biography on Flint Global includes the line that the group “has agreed with HM Treasury that Ian will not lobby anyone in the UK government and that he will not work for any clients at Flint Global with whom he had material contact in his HMT position”.
Secure Trust noted Corfield’s role as chief commercial officer of credit provider NewDay from 2014 to 2023.
Last month, Secure Trust reported a bounceback in lending after it issued a profit warning in November, following the launch of the Financial Conduct Authority’s probe into the motor finance scandal.
Earlier this year, Reeves attempted to intervene in a Supreme Court case, which could potentially put car finance lenders on the hook for billions of pounds in commission, but the Treasury’s attempt to shield loan providers was rejected.
