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I was first tipped off at the weekend and I had not gone looking for this information, it found me.<\/p>\n
My source chose to tell the BBC, knowing that if we could corroborate and verify the information – and a wider sense of anger – the range of our programmes on television and radio and news articles here online would take the news to a wide audience.<\/p>\n
Our team, led by me, chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman and others, sought to verify and corroborate what I had been told.<\/p>\n
As journalists, we have to be sceptical about where information is coming from, its accuracy and why we are being told it – and seek to explain to you what we know and do not know, and the motivations of those telling us stuff.<\/p>\n
And we should always calibrate the breadth and depth of – in this instance – anger and frustration and put it in context.<\/p>\n
Over a few days, we established from other, independent sources that what I had been told was accurate.<\/p>\n
Crucially, it was also very much apparent our source was far from alone in their sense of grievance about Ms Gray.<\/p>\n
When I spoke to several senior figures in government with the information we had pulled together, they did not dispute the central tenets of our story.<\/p>\n
We were also able to bring you the wider context of salaries among government staff and how this government\u2019s approach to it is different from the governments that went before.<\/p>\n
There are plenty in government now who are angry and upset that we have reported this and feel it is deeply unfair to Ms Gray.<\/p>\n
She is, after all, a figure without her own public platform, she can not come out and talk to me in front of a camera, as a politician might.<\/p>\n
Her allies feel there is a nasty and vindictive campaign from some to discredit her – and others worry deeply stories like this could put people off considering a job in government out of fear their name could be kicked around in public.<\/p>\n
But the central truth here is there is a row at the top of a very new government – and it is important I tell you about that.<\/p>\n
It is my job to try to bring you as clear a sense as I can of what is really going on at the heart of government, warts and all.<\/p>\n
And that is what I – and our wider team – have tried to do here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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