Danny Kruger, Reform UK’s head of preparation for government, has said the party would “break up” the cabinet secretary role into several different jobs if elected to power.
Writing an opinion piece for The Telegraph, Kruger responded today to the publication of cab sec and head of the civil service Dame Antonia Romeo’s objectives earlier this week.
He said the document “openly demonstrates the trend of British politics in this century, by which power has drained away from elected ministers and towards officials in quangos, government departments and – most of all – the Cabinet Office, the bloated fief ruled over by the cabinet secretary”.
Kruger said the cab sec role’s “component parts – policy adviser to the PM, management of the cabinet and cabinet committees, and leadership of the civil service itself – are distinct jobs and should be held by different people”.
Romeo's objectives published on Monday included leading official delivery of the government’s and prime minister’s priorities in support of the government.
But Kruger said "the responsibility for 'delivery', actually getting things done on behalf of the public, should rest with departments, led by ministers who are accountable to parliament and the public".
He also repeated his previous declarations that Reform UK would reduce the size of the civil service and bring in political appointments.
“We need a far smaller Whitehall – not least thanks to the capabilities of AI to deliver better, quicker, cheaper work than officials," he said. "We need a far smaller centre, focused on setting and tracking priorities, resolving conflicts and unblocking action. Most of all we need politicians, not civil servants in charge – people with the mandate and the courage to take decisions and to bear responsibility for the results.”
Kruger defected from the Conservative Party to Reform UK in September 2025. He is a former shadow minister and served as political secretary in 2019 to then-prime minister Boris Johnson.
Reform UK currently lead the polls, with Electoral Calculus’ poll of polls predicting they would get 266 seats in the House of Commons if a general election took place tomorrow and would have a 74% probability of being the largest party.