SUE GRAY INTENDS TO NAME civil servants who broke Covid rules at lockdown parties in and around Downing Street.
The senior civil servant will publish her full report on the parties after the Metropolitan Police wound up their investigation.
The Met Police have not named any of the 83 individuals who have been fined.
Gray is contacting the ones she wants to name, ahead of the publication of her report, which is expected to be next week.
Those who are about to be named have been given until 5pm on Sunday to respond to information she intends to publish about them.
Prime Minister Johnson said it would be ‘up to Sue Gray’ whom she names when publishing her report, adding: ‘fingers crossed, that will be very soon.’
Downing Street last month revealed that PM Johnson, his wife Carrie, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were fined for breaking Covid laws at a June 2020 birthday party for Johnson in No 10.
It had been widely expected the PM could be fined again over other parties, but he has been told he will face no further action.
The Met has revealed some officials are facing fines for being at a party in the number 10 garden in May 2020 attended by Johnson, for which he did not receive a fine.
Its probe, which lasted four months and cost £460,000, led to 126 fines being issued for events in and around Downing Street.
Some Conservative MPs have previously said they are reserving judgement on Johnson’s future until the full Gray report is published.
If the individuals Gray plans to name in her report, object to what is being said about them, it could delay publication.
It is expected that her assessment will be that there were trails of evidence to suggest the prime minister was badly advised, and not necessarily aware of what events he was stumbling into.
An interim version of her report, published in January, did not name individuals but criticised ‘failures of leadership and judgement’ and said some events should not have ‘been allowed to take place’.
Dave Penman, the leader of the FDA union representing senior civil servants, told the BBC there had been ‘no rationale’ to name people in the Met inquiry.
However, he added there would be a ‘harder line to tread’ for Gray in her report, where she would need to balance ‘sensitivity around naming someone publicly against the important need for public scrutiny of senior officials’.
He expressed great concern over junior officials being scapegoated.
