Boris Johnson has hired his personal photographer as a special adviser with wages funded by the taxpayer, a government source has confirmed.

Andrew Parsons was previously taken off the public payroll while working as David Cameron’s personal photographer in Downing Street.

Then PM, Cameron bowed to public pressure and took Parsons off the public payroll when a political storm erupted after it was disclosed he was being paid by the taxpayer in 2010.

Parsons will now re-enter Downing Street in a role that will see him focus on modernising Number 10′s digital and video output.

Special advisers are temporary civil servants and their salaries are paid by the taxpayer.

Parsons toured the country with the PM during the general election campaign, officially taking photographs for the Conservative party. He also sold his images to media outlets.

Cameron was said to have accepted in 2010 that the photographer’s appointment sent out the “wrong signal” at a time when the civil service was facing swingeing cuts.

Parsons is a co-founder of the i-images picture agency and a former photographer with the PA news agency.