Whitehall on alert for full Gray Report within days

PARTS of Sue Gray’s longawaited report into the No 10 parties will make people say ‘Oh Lord!’ when it is finally published next week, sources claimed last night.

The senior civil servant will set out what exactly went on at 16 events across Whitehall.

Some of the most damaging revelations will include how one party in the Cabinet Office ended with a boozy fight.

Sources said that there will be surprising details in the report that provoke an ‘Oh Lord!’ reaction as they have stayed secret until now.

It is understood that the findings – which are most likely to be published on either Tuesday or Wednesday next week – will run to around 24 to 36 pages in length.

Whitehall sources said Miss Gray was last night still ‘weighing up’ whether or not to publish some of the more than 300 photographs gathered during the investigation.

The pictures include some taken by No10’s official photographer.

It is understood Miss Gray will present a factual account of all the gatherings such as how many people were there and what happened. She looked into the 12 events investigated by the police, as well as four others.

The mandarin will also expand on comments made in her interim report earlier this year when she found ‘there were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10 and the Cabinet Office’.

Miss Gray was prevented from publishing her full findings after the Metropolitan Police launched its own investigation in January.

She is expected to consult lawyers and human resources personnel as she makes final tweaks this weekend, before her report is released.

No 10 has committed to publishing it in full soon after it has been completed and Boris Johnson will give a Commons statement.

Miss Gray and her Cabinet Office team have interviewed more than 70 people including the Prime Minister, as well as examining the emails, WhatsApp messages and text messages of No10 staff. In January, she had to publish a scaled-down version of her report after police asked her to make only ‘minimal reference’ to the gatherings it was investigating at the time.

The Prime Minister ordered the inquiry last December after a video emerged of Downing Street staff joking about a rule-breaking Christmas party.

He asked Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to ‘establish all the facts’ about the event, but he was forced to stand down from the probe after just ten days when it emerged a gathering was held in his own office.

The inquiry was later widened to include a No10 virtual Christmas quiz, leaving bashes for several Downing Street aides and a festive event in the Department for Education.

The terms of reference for the inquiry state its ‘primary purpose’ was to ‘establish swiftly a general understanding of the nature of the gatherings, including attendance, the setting and the purpose, with reference to adherence to the guidance in place at the time’.

Miss Gray developed a fearsome reputation among ministers and officials in her former job as head of the ethics team in the Cabinet Office.

She dealt with complaints against ministers that effectively ended the ministerial careers of Damian Green and Andrew Mitchell.

Before joining the Cabinet Office, she worked in Transport, Health and DWP in both policy and frontline delivery. She took a career break in the late 1980s, buying and running a pub in Newry, Northern Ireland.

Miss Gray first joined the Cabinet Office in the late 1990s and was the Director General, Propriety and Ethics from 2012 to 2018.

Last May she returned to the Cabinet Office as Second Permanent Secretary, the Union and Constitution.

‘Failures of leadership’