Former cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell has warned that Keir Starmer “faces one of the worst crises in relations between ministers and mandarins of modern times” following the firing of Olly Robbins.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office permanent secretary was sacked last week following revelations by the Guardian that the FCDO granted developed vetting status to Peter Mandelson when he was appointed as the UK's ambassador to Washington DC last year, against the recommendation of a UK Security Vetting report.
Starmer said on Friday that neither he nor any other minister was informed that Mandleson had not been approved by UKSV, describing this as unacceptable and unforgivable.
Allies of Robbins, including former top security official Ciaran Martin, have argued he was acting in line with the normal process and his duty not to disclose details of the vetting process to ministers.
Lord O’Donnell said Starmer “appears to have taken a very rapid decision to dismiss someone for applying what seems on the face of it to be an entirely standard, reasonable and perfectly obvious interpretation of the law and rules as they stand”.
He said this “risks having a serious and sustained chilling effect on serving and prospective civil servants…and must be fixed”.
O’Donnell, who was cab sec from 2005 to 2011, said Starmer and “the brilliant new cabinet secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo, must make this one of their very top priorities together”.
He also warned against a comprehensive ripping up of the civil service system.
“It is not a new or unique insight to point out that the state faces extraordinary challenges,” O’Donnell said. “Nor that the relationship between ministers and the machine is often fraught. Like the vetting system, the wider model of British public administration is not the only available model and has no divine right to exist. But I would caution against assuming that a complete structural overhaul of our permanent, impartial civil service would make things better.”
O’Donnell said Dame Antonia is “the hugely talented and experienced leader he needs as a partner to fix this foundational relationship”.
“The task requires hard graft, sustained attention, and an effort to rebuild some of the trust lost by the events of the past week,” he said. “There is no more important task for [Starmer] and we must hope that he and the new cabinet secretary succeed.”
O’Donnell also warned that the loss of Robbins’ leadership “will be acutely felt across our global network”.
Robbins “was doing more than any other head of department to address some serious and longstanding criticisms of the civil service”, O’Donnell said.
“The Foreign Office suffered the largest budget cut, in percentage terms, of any part of Whitehall in last year’s spending review,” he said. “Rather than moan and leak complaints to the press, Sir Olly developed a radical, brave and often painful programme of major reform. Whole layers of senior management were reduced and the department focused on doing fewer things with greater impact. He built an unlikely coalition internally to deliver the changes, and was succeeding.”
Robbins is due to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday to outline what happened from his perspective and is reportedly considering taking the issue to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.
FCDO second perm sec Nick Dyer has been appointed as interim perm sec following Robbins' departure.
Ahead of the FAC session, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper told the committee that she has asked the department to conduct a full review of all the information it has given to FAC on the security vetting process undertaken as part of Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
On Friday night, it emerged that Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little had learnt of the recommendation from the UKSV vetting officer that Mandelson should not be granted developed vetting a few weeks ago. The file was shared with Little as part of the humble address motion to force the government to disclose material surrounding his appointment as ambassador to the US.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said that once Little received this document, the Cabinet Office "immediately undertook a series of expedited checks in order to be in a sound position to share the document, or the fact of it".
They said this included detailed legal advice on what information could be shared further in the context of the humble address; consideration of whether sharing the information would prejudice criminal proceedings; and seeking information from the Foreign Office about the process they had followed which led to Mandelson being given DV clearance against the recommendation of UKSV.
“As soon as these checks were conducted, the prime minister was informed,” the spokesperson said.