Sue Gray, the former senior civil servant and chief of staff to Keir Starmer, has urged the new prime minister Andy Burnham and his team to “put their trust" in the civil service.
Gray was a civil servant for most of her career, starting out in a benefits office and rising to become second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office in 2021. She joined Starmer's leader of the opposition team as chief of staff in March 2023, a role she quit in October 2024 after three months in No.10. She is now a peer in the House of Lords.
Speaking to former Labour minister Ed Balls for an episode of the Political Currency podcast which went up today, Gray was asked what advice she would give to Burnham and his team about making No.10 work.
She said: “What I would really encourage them to do is work with the civil service and put their trust in it as well. There’s challenge obviously but I think there are great opportunities if everybody can work together.”
Gray said she thinks Burnham has come into No.10 “with a very clear view of what he wants to do, and he’s got huge experience not just in central government but also being a mayor and [on] delivery”.
Gray was also asked by Balls if she thinks the British state is less effective than it was ten or 20 years ago and rejected this argument.
She said: “No. If I look back on the civil service I joined and spent much of my career in, it has continued to grow, develop. It's a very different civil service today. It's not gone backwards. It's actually evolving, and it's going to evolve now again.”
Gray added: “And establishing an office in the north, No.10 the North, [is] actually really positive. I think it will absolutely change some of the way of thinking. I learnt that when I was in Northern Ireland working in the devolved government. So I do think the challenges today are different. Social media, everything is just very different. But I think there's great opportunity.”
Briefings in No.10 'were unbearable'
Gray also spoke about her time as Downing Street chief of staff, from July-October 2024, describing briefings around her as “unbearable”.
“I had always taken a view as a civil servant, and as a special adviser, that you should be able to speak freely in rooms,” she said.
She said the advice she has given prime ministers over the years “was always on the basis that you could talk freely in the room”.
“I couldn't recall those sort of discussions being briefed out,” she said. “And yet here I found myself. You know, stories about supposedly trying to move Morgan McSweeney to the back of the building. Actually, that was a genuine, I can't believe so many of you are going to sit in this small room. Let's find a better room for you.”
Posited by Balls that this became “unbearable”, Gray said: “It was definitely unbearable, particularly for me. And I will say that none of that briefing came from me. It was very difficult and it was affecting me in my life and I was getting into the office very early in the morning and leaving late to avoid… you know just yeah it was a very, very difficult period.”
Asked if she could ever imagine being enticed back into central government, Gray said: “I am enjoying myself, and I get to take part in many aspects of public life. And you talked about me taking on a role with the USPCA, and I came away with a puppy.”
On Jeremy Heywood: ‘We would meet in the middle’
Speaking about her time as a senior civil servant, Gray said “one of the great things” was “being able to sit down and talk with the cabinet secretary [and] sometimes have a difference of view”.
She said her conversations with Jeremy Heywood, who was cab sec from 2012-2018, particularly stood out.
“I can always remember Jeremy Heywood and me,” she said. “We were discussing a particular issue, and we started at opposite ends of the discussion, and over the quite… lengthy discussion over a few days on whatever the issue was, we would meet in the middle, and actually we would reflect on how we had gone about the task."
Gray added that she "always felt" she had the support of the cab secs she served.