Sir Keir Starmer is facing a backlash in Whitehall over plans to force out cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald after just 14 months in the role.
Dame Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Home Office, is seen as frontrunner to succeed Wormald as head of the UK civil service, although the government is yet to comment formally.
An announcement confirming Wormald’s exit and setting out interim arrangements for the role to be shared between officials, while a permanent candidate is finalised, is expected as soon as Thursday.
Romeo, who would be the first female cabinet secretary if appointed, was the subject of a fierce political attack by an ex-mandarin on Wednesday.
Sir Simon McDonald, former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, told Channel 4 that if Romeo was promoted to the position, it would show “the due diligence still has some way to go”.
He said he had been in touch with the government earlier in the day about contributing to any vetting process regarding Romeo and had not yet received a response.
Romeo faced allegations about bullying and her expenses while consul-general in New York between 2016 and 2017, according to media reports, but these claims were dismissed by the Cabinet Office at the time “on the basis there was no case to answer”. McDonald was at the helm of the Foreign Office when the allegations were made.
McDonald called for a “full process” to find a new cabinet secretary that started “from scratch” — warning the most “important” civil service position “can’t be chosen on the fly” or via an outdated process.
He said Wormald’s expected departure was an “extraordinary development”, given it was “usual for cabinet secretaries to serve several prime ministers and about a decade”.
Wormald is set to be the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in the 110-year history of the post. He was appointed in December 2024.
McDonald said it was likely the relationship between Starmer and Wormald had “broken down”, but also floated the possibility that the prime minister was pushing out his cabinet secretary as a “deflection exercise” after his most difficult week in Downing Street.
A Whitehall official branded McDonald’s intervention a “desperate attempt from a senior male official whose time has passed”.
Romeo is a “disrupter” who would provide “exactly the leadership the civil service needs to embrace systemic reform to rewire the state, take on vested interests and deliver for the British people”, the official said.
Wormald’s exit will be the third departure of a senior adviser to Starmer in the past week, following the resignations of his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications director Tim Allan.
Starmer has orchestrated Wormald’s departure as part of a wider reset of his administration, according to some officials, following a failed attempt to oust the prime minister on Monday.
Starmer did not have high regard for Wormald’s grip on policy implementation or modernisation of Whitehall, one person familiar with the matter said.
Other government figures have suggested that Wormald’s departure may be linked to his role overseeing the vetting of Lord Peter Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to the US, which is set to come under scrutiny when documents about the process are released.
Wormald was the longest-serving permanent secretary in Whitehall, with more than eight years’ service at the helm of the Department of Health, when he was chosen for the £200,000-a-year role advising Starmer and leading the civil service.
Briefings against Wormald by Starmer have left some senior officials aghast. One mandarin said they were finding Wormald’s treatment “very emotional and raw”.
Some said he had been undermined from the start by vicious criticism from political operatives, and that any failures in policy delivery originated from Starmer’s failure to articulate a vision or his priorities in Whitehall.
One person familiar with the situation said any suggestion that Wormald was linked to a toxic “boys’ club” culture in Downing Street was “abhorrent . . . nonsense”.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the trade union that represents senior civil servants, warned the Labour government had failed to “learn the lessons from the Cummings era” — a reference to the attacks on the civil service launched by Dominic Cummings when he was chief adviser to Boris Johnson in Number 10.
“What message does this briefing send to the entire civil service, never mind anyone thinking of joining government in a senior role?” Penman said on X this week.
Some officials believe Starmer’s mistake lies in the original appointment of Wormald as cabinet secretary, arguing the prime minister’s pick was out of step with his stated desire to overhaul how the centre of government works.
Alex Thomas, programme director at the Institute for Government think-tank, said: “Chris is obviously a highly accomplished civil servant and a policy brain, but his management style is not one of radical reform and changes to the structures of Whitehall. That’s what’s played out now.”
Baroness Gisela Stuart, the first civil service commissioner, must sign off on Wormald’s successor, but Starmer is not required to carry out a prolonged process to choose the next cabinet secretary, people briefed on the matter said.
Romeo was one of four candidates shortlisted for cabinet secretary in the contest that Wormald won in 2024, alongside Sir Olly Robbins, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, and Dame Tamara Finkelstein, former permanent secretary at the environment department.
The Cabinet Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.