Senior civil servant caught up in Amber Rudd's resignation and Windrush scandal leaves Home Office

More than 5,000 potential Windrush cases have been identified by the Home Office

A senior Home Office official who advised Amber Rudd during the Windrush scandal that eventually led to her resignation has left the department after 27 years.

Hugh Ind, the director general of immigration enforcement, is expected to take up a new role at the Cabinet Office as part of several senior staffing changes at the top of the Home Office.

The move is being viewed by some as a demotion after Mr Ind was caught up in the row over deportation targets that cost Ms Rudd her job as home secretary last month.

More than 5,000 potential Windrush cases have been already been identified since it emerged that Caribbean immigrants – who moved to the UK between 1940s to 1970s – had lost their jobs, been refused medical care or been threatened with deportation as they did not have the right documentation.

At the height of the row, Ms Rudd incorrectly told a Commons committee that there were no Home Office targets for removing illegal immigrants.

She was later forced to resign from her cabinet position for misleading MPs when a leaked memo revealed she had been told of the targets.

The six-page document was prepared by Mr Ind for Ms Rudd and her advisers last year, saying the department had set “a target of achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18” and boasts that “we have exceeded our target of assisted returns”.

The Home Office confirmed that Mr Ind was moving to another Whitehall department in early June but insisted he had not been fired or demoted.

Patsy Wilkinson, the second permanent secretary to the department will also be leaving, officials confirmed.

It comes as a dedicated taskforce set up in the wake of the Windrush debacle was revealed to have taken more than 13,000 calls, of which 5,000 have been identified as potential cases.

However guidance issued as part of a package of measures by Sajid Javid, the new home secretary, revealed those rejected under the scheme “will not attract a right of appeal”.