Gus O’Donnell has urged prime minister Keir Starmer to “get a grip” on his special advisers following the announcement that Sir Chris Wormald has stepped down as cabinet secretary.
Wormald’s departure as the nation’s most senior civil servant, which was confirmed yesterday, came barely more than a year after Starmer appointed him to the role. However briefings that Wormald had fallen out of favour and was in line to be removed from his post as cabinet secretary and head of the civil service began months ago.
Lord O’Donnell, who served as cabinet secretary under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, said prime ministers had the absolute right to choose who they want as their cabinet secretary. But he described the way Wormald has been treated as “shabby” and called for Downing Street to take a higher path.
“Where it's shabby is the fact that we've got to this place and that they have briefed anonymously against the cabinet secretary saying it's not working, and they’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
O’Donnell said the process had been repeated with other senior figures in the Starmer government and was one its “biggest failings”.
“You've seen it right from the start with Sue Gray, briefings against her, all the rest of it,” he said. “This is the fundamental problem, and that is something the prime minister can solve by getting a grip on his special advisers.”
O’Donnell said really good spads were useful, and cited Ed Balls, Alistair Campbell and Jonathan Powell as examples.
“If they're good, they understand their subject, they can make the relationship between ministers and civil servants work a lot better,” he said. “Bad special advisers who turn out to be second rate PR people can be disastrous. You saw it in the run up to the Budget. It was a complete omni-shambles from a comms point of view, whatever you think about the economics of it.”
He concluded: “The prime minister must take responsibility and get a grip.”
Last night, FDA general secretary Dave Penman described the ousting of Wormald as a “new low” for the government and its relationship with the civil service.
“A government that, only last month, said that it wants its civil servants to take risks and that ministers will have their back if they do, has just undermined that message in spectacular fashion,” Penman said, in reference to a speech by chief secretary to the PM Darren Jones.
Last night, former Home Office permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutnam – who resigned from his role in 2020 in protest at the conduct of then home secretary Priti Patel – also lamented Wormald’s seemingly forced departure.
“It's obviously not a great day,” he said. “It's not a great day for the government. It's not a great day for the civil service.
“But the truth is sometimes appointments don't work out, and then it's important to recognise that and to move on and to focus on the future, and I think that's essentially what's happened, for whatever reasons.
“What I'm hoping is there'll now be the kind of partnership created between our political leadership and the civil service that the country really needs.”