Whitehall is adrift
As Downing Street factions engage in a circular briefing war, there's a lame duck Cabinet Secretary, no Downing Street Principal Private Secretary, and no clarity over the National Security Adviser
Labour’s first Conference as a governing party for a decade and a half, was overshadowed by a growing row over cronyism and freebies. And - although it’s clear that there’s much more to come on that, including about the messy links between donations and Government appointments [more on that later] - back in SW1, things in Whitehall are adrift.
Three of the most significant roles in the Civil Service are either vacant or occupied by lame ducks - the Head of the Civil Service/Cabinet Secretary, the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, and the National Security Adviser.
Other parts of the (supposedly) permanent architecture are also weak. In HM Treasury, the Permanent Secretary James Bowler is well-liked but lacks the experience of his predecessor, Tom Scholar (who was removed by Liz Truss), or the deft judgement of the long-serving Nick Macpherson. In the Cabinet Office, Cat Little was appointed Permanent Secretary just before the election, but has already erred badly by signing off on the appointment of the Labour staffer Jess Sargeant into the heart of the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Guardianship Team.
At the same time, rows between different factions within Downing Street have spilled out into the open, as has some extraordinary briefing against the Cabinet Secretary himself from ‘several cabinet ministers’ in today’s Guardian.
This is not a healthy situation.
Meanwhile, inside Whitehall concerns are growing that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is not really up to the job, as I wrote in this weekend’s Sunday Telegraph. This is especially troubling as the ‘fiscal event’ scheduled for 30 October is arguably the single most important of this Parliament. It will set the overall Spending Envelope for the next few years. That’s the amount of money Government has at its disposal to spend - it’s absolutely fundamental.
In Downing Street, Keir Starmer is apparently taking quite a hands-off approach with most of his ministers. There has been briefing that he ‘trusts’ them to get on with the job. That’s fine in general - and a Command and Control Downing Street trying to micromanage everything from the centre never ends well. But it seems things have moved to the other extreme. Starmer is also, as I have suggested previously, slow to come to a decision. He seems a bit of a ditherer.
It also doesn’t seem that he’s particularly interested in policy. Certainly not economic policy. I was told by several insiders that Starmer only recently took his first major policy submission in his Red Box. I found this so extraordinary that I struggle to see how it could be correct. I was also told that Rachel Reeves’s major intervention ending universal Winter Fuel Payments was shaped and driven from HM Treasury, with 10 Downing Street largely uninvolved.
Well that went well. Presumably given the way that Winter Fuel decision has blown up into a dominating narrative, some around the Prime Minister must see the need for some central grip? Someone issuing some political judgement? Someone setting out an overall-strategy? But that grip needs to be exerted through the Civil Service machine - primarily through the Cabinet Secretary and the PPS to the PM.
The levers of Government are weak at the best of times.
It’s hard enough to get reform done even with a fair wind, a good economic outlook, and strong ministers, experienced advisers and able officials in post. But this Government is facing a perilous combination of ministerial inexperience and poor judgement, battling advisers, and a badly depleted senior team in Whitehall.
Cabinet Secretary
The departure of the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service has been repeatedly reported on – but, to date, no competition has been launched. The expectation is now that he will leave in early 2025, which as I noted previously, would allow him to – almost – complete a five year-fixed term. That’s the timetable he was telling friends months ago that he was hoping for. It’s unclear why a process to select his successor has not yet been launched.
Some insiders tell me Case has refused to allow the competition to open and is relying on a section of the Cabinet Manual essentially to exercise a veto over the competition:
‘The Cabinet Secretary is appointed by the Prime Minister on the advice of the retiring Cabinet Secretary and the First Civil Service Commissioner’.
I find that hard to take too credibly.
If the Prime Minister were to ask for advice on the appointment of a new Cabinet Secretary, surely he would be provided with that by the Cabinet Secretary and Civil Service Commissioner?
Anyway, the Cabinet Manual is a manual for the Cabinet about the operation of Government. It’s guidance. It’s not in of itself a legal text.
But, anyway, it’s not sustainable to have such a major question mark over the role. And to have several Cabinet ministers engaged in a briefing salvo against Simon Case, ironcially about whether he did or did not brief against Sue Gray.
If the new Government had always planned to replace Case why have they taken so long about it? No one seems sure.
Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister
In Downing Street, the Principal Private Secretary role is vacant, since Elizabeth Perelman has already moved to a new position. This is the ‘Bernard’ role of Yes, Minister fame.
The Deputy Principal Private Secretary - DPPS - in the Whitehall jargon is running the show. Kunal Patel, like Perelman joined from HM Treasury, as is typical for the DPPS who usually ‘leads’ on economic questions.
It’s hard to over-state the importance of the PPS job to the smooth operation of Downing Street, and Government more broadly. The Private Office runs the PM’s life, they handle the interaction with other departments, and the PPS also runs a large (and elite) team of private secretaries. No wonder some working there are apparently miserable, and looking back nostalgically at days gone by.
It’s been obvious for months that a replacement PPS was going to be needed. Apparently the role is the subject of an ongoing tussle between different Whitehall factions.
The Times reported that Dan Gieve, was set to be appointed. I worked with Gieve and think he is first rate and would be a great hire. I previously described him as ‘brilliant; cool as cucumber in a crisis; full of sage advice; good at building a team’. But things seem to have stalled, for reasons which are not quite clear.
Frankly that’s just not good enough.
If it’s really not possible to reach agreement on an individual to appoint to the role (through what’s called a ‘managed move’ - basically a tap on the shoulder), then there will have to be some sort of process kicked off. At a minimum it could be to ask for Expressions of Interest.
Several senior Whitehall figures though now believe that there must be a Civil Service Commission-led process to appoint the PPS, given the ongoing wrangling.
I am not convinced, but I strongly agree with the need for clarity. Soon.
And with no PPS, the Deputy PPS is having to do both his regular job (to serve as the Prime Minister’s primary official link to HM Treasury), and the role vacated by Perelman. That’s even more bizarre given we are just weeks away from a crucial fiscal event, which 10 Downing Street should be shaping rather than leaving to HM Treasury officialdom to run. (Especially after the Winter Fuel debacle).
Why was Perelman allowed to leave her post without clarity over who next?
National Security Adviser
The last Government appointed General Gwyn Jenkins, from the military top brass as National Security Adviser (NSA). It also announced that Sir Tim Barrow, the current NSA would be the next British Ambassador to the United States of America.
Both appointments were annulled by Starmer, which sent shock waves through Whitehall.
Some of the briefing around Gwyn Jenkins suggested that the distinguished former head of the Marines and Special Boat Service was too much of a military man to do the NSA role. Yet he had spent time as the Deputy National Security Adviser and was therefore familiar with central Government, as Simon Case noted at the time of his appointment. Anyway, the role of National Security Adviser was only created in 2010, so it’s not as if there’s a hard rule about who can and cannot do the role.
Others have drawn a link between Starmer’s decision and the Inquiry into British Special Forces in Afghanistan, particularly since the Attorney General was previously counsel for Afghan victims.
Starmer’s decision has left a big question mark over the role, and the operation of the National Security Secreteriat more generally. Tim Barrow is continuing to operate as NSA but in what is widely seen as a lame duck capacity. This is not ideal, particularly given the number of security challenges facing the United Kingdom.
No process to recruit a new National Security Adviser has yet been launched.
What will happen?
I suspect that most in the Civil Service will KBO - or at least will be trying to do so. But the absence of senior leadership on the Civil Service side is a profound problem.
This blog is an advocate for reform of the structures and processes of Government.
But, there’s little point even thinking about that, if you cannot get bums on seats for some of the most important Civil Service jobs.
A key rule for getting stuff done in Whitehall is people before processes.
In this case it has been ignored.
But….there have been some welcome news.
I wrote previously about who Wes Streeting might choose to be his Second Permanent Secretary in the Department of Health and Social Care (with its £200 billion budget). As Streeting himself has warned, the UK is in danger of becoming a Health Service with a country is attached.
His choice is Tom Riordan. Riordan was Chief Executive of Leeds City Council. He will therefore bring a knowledge of the challenges Local Government faces, particularly given the expanding demand for social care and the importance of Local Government in improving public health. He also spent some months working on the ill-fated Test and Trace scheme (which will have given him an insight into how Whitehall works….and doesn’t work). Most importantly he is genuinely interested in reform. For example, he was previously on the Advisory Board of Nick Herbert’s GovernUp.
I think this is a smart choice.
[And thank you to the reader who alerted me to this possibility, albeit after I had published my runners and riders blog which failed to include Riordan! If you have thoughts, tips or idea do please get in touch].