Daily Telegraph claims the former head of Partnership for Schools was targeted

The former head of Partnerships for Schools, Tim Byles, was a victim of phone hacking, according to reports.

Byles was reportedly targeted last summer, when media reports blamed him for Michael Gove repeatedly issuing incorrect lists of schools affected by the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Today’s Daily Telegraph reports Byles voiced his concerns to a former Labour minister, amid claims the negative media reports around him had been orchestrated by David Cameron’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson.

Byles is said to have claimed his phone had been hacked, his rubbish had been stolen and that he was placed under surveillance.

Two Sunday papers claimed to have been passed a government dossier with details of Byles’s salary and details of wasteful spending.

Sir David Bell, the senior civil servant at the the department for education, has written to Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, to say that Byles “suspected his mobile phone had been tampered with for the purposes of intercepting calls”.

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