Partygate: Council boss confirmed as subject of police investigation but remains on fully paid leave

Calls were already growing for Kate Josephs to resign

Kate Josephs, former head of the Covid-19 Taskforce at the Cabinet Office (@katejosephs/Twitter)

A council boss who threw a lockdown-breaking party in her previous government job is to remain on fully paid leave despite it now being confirmed her bash is the subject of a police investigation.

Calls were already growing for Kate Josephs to resign as chief executive of Sheffield City Council after she admitted breaching coronavirus restrictions to throw a leaving party when she left the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 Taskforce in December 2020.

Now, the shindig is one of 12 named in Sue Gray’s so-called Partygate report as being considered so serious that Scotland Yard is investigating it.

The news comes days after The Independent revealed that Ms Josephs – who earns £190,00-a-year in her role with the Labour-run council – will be off work indefinitely under a form of leave generally given to staff dealing with life-altering situations such as the death of a child.

She has been granted “discretionary” absence – generally reserved for employees experiencing traumatic personal events such as where the loss of a loved one is so devastating that statutory bereavement leave is not considered adequate.

She will stay off work until a committee of cross-party councillors has considered the situation.

In a statement released on Monday, council leader Terry Fox said the committee would “consider” the findings of the Sue Gray report.

He has refused to answer all questions on the subject since it broke last month, raising questions about transparency within the authority. No information has been given on the terms of what the committee is considering, when it will report or in what format it will do so.

Lord Paul Scriven, a Lib Dem peer who led the authority between 2008 and 2011, condemned the decisions made around Josephs – who repeatedly said she had not been to parties until she was found out.

He said: “It is astonishing that someone who has brought the name of the city into disrepute can just continue in her employment as though nothing has happened. The bare minimum should be that she is suspended while the investigation takes place, as most other people would be if serious allegations about their probity were brought forward.”

The city’s five Labour MPs, meanwhile, continue to refuse to comment on the situation, despite repeatedly calling for Boris Johnson to stand down over parties that he attended.

Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh, former shadow Brexit minister Paul Blomfield, Gill Furniss, Olivia Blake and Clive Betts have all declined to speak about the situation.