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Revenue chiefs are to be handed details of nearly 2,500 senior public workers paid “off payroll” to investigate whether any are evading tax, ministers said today.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander also ordered a crackdown on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” culture which could allow these individuals to avoid tax.

He said off-payroll schemes were “endemic” in the public sector.

Each Whitehall department was today publishing details of the posts where senior “appointees” are remunerated in this way.

Mr Alexander called on the BBC and town halls to follow the Government in bringing in new anti-tax avoidance rules.

More than 70 of the “appointees” identified in a Treasury review are paid at least £1,000 a day.

About 250 are paid through personal services company which are legal but which experts say could be used to avoid tax. Mr Alexander said such payments were justified in some circumstances.

Hundreds of the state employees work in Whitehall, including around 160 at the Justice Ministry and 120 at the Health Department.

But the vast majority work for quangos. They include almost 150 at FCO Services, which supplies the Foreign Office, and about 120 at the Skills Funding Agency.

Mr Alexander said that in future the most senior staff will have to be on the payroll unless there are exceptional circumstances.

The review examined the cases of central government and quango workers paid more than £58,200, the Senior Civil Service minimum.