Lin Homer takes HMRC chief role

LIN HOMER is to take the HMRC chief executive role.

Homer, currently permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, will take over from Lesley Strathie who stepped down for health reasons last month.

Permanent secretary for tax Dave Hartnett will step down from his role in the summer, when he will retire.

Homer qualified as a lawyer in 1980 before joining Hertfordshire County Council. She became Suffolk County Council chief executive in 1998.

She took on Birmingham City Council’s chief executive post I 2002, where she spent three years before joining the Home Office as director-general for the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

Homer was the first chief executive of the UK Border Agency, before taking the DoT role in 2010.

Hartnett turns 61 in February. The usual retirement age for a permanent secretary is 60.

Homer said: “I am delighted and honoured to be joining HMRC at this time. Lesley will be a hard act to follow. The department has achieved a great deal in recent years and I want to anchor those achievements, continue the drive for better customer service and sustainable cost reductions while bringing in more tax revenues for the country.

“I am also pleased that Dave Hartnett..has agreed to stay on at HMRC until the summer of 2012, when he will retire. Dave is widely-recognised as a tax leader at home and abroad, and has secured billions in tax for the UK that would otherwise have been lost through avoidance, evasion and fraud.

“I will greatly benefit from the experience and continuity provided by both Mike Clasper and Dave Hartnett as I take up the reins at HMRC.”

Hartnett said: “I am very pleased to have the opportunity to work with Lin and will give her every support during the coming months as she determines how to build on HMRC’s many achievements.”