\n<\/p>\n
Attacks on the UK\u2019s cabinet secretary \u201cstink of political cowardice\u201d, the head of the senior civil servants\u2019 union has said as concerns mount inside the government about his performance.<\/p>\n
The general secretary of the FDA, Dave Penman, said anonymous criticism of Chris Wormald was \u201chugely damaging\u201d to the government and its prospects of recruiting talented officials to top jobs.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer chose Wormald from a shortlist of four in December to lead the civil service, but within months people inside the prime minister\u2019s circle began raising concerns about his performance.<\/p>\n
The Guardian reported in July that No 10 had \u201cbuyer\u2019s remorse\u201d about the appointment, with Starmer\u2019s aides viewing Wormald as \u201cinsipid\u201d and entrenched in the status quo. The Times reported this week that he was unlikely to survive in the job beyond January.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris Wormald \u200bis the civil servant\u2019s civil servant\u200b. That is apparently what \u200bStarmer wanted, someone who won\u2019t be making headlines\u200b,\u201d Penman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if he was failing to deliver what he is supposed to deliver\u200b, this isn\u2019t the way to deal with it. It stinks of political \u200bcowardice. It\u2019s hugely damaging because what does it say about the \u200bpolitical leadership?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does it say \u200bto who\u200bever is going to replace him and candidates who would want to come after him? They will\u200b wonder if they will find themselves out of favour\u200b after six months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other senior civil service figures questioned what Starmer\u2019s expectations had been when making the appointment. One said criticism of Wormald felt unfair and that it had been \u201ca deliberate choice to go low-energy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another Whitehall insider said Wormald\u2019s attitude was one of \u201cmake things work for your minister\u201d, and pointed out he was the permanent secretary who helped Michael Gove drive through his changes at the Department for Education between 2012 and 2014. Gove \u201cwas a minister who had a clear agenda\u201d, they said.<\/p>\n
Downing Street said on Wednesday that Wormald continued to have the support of the prime minister and that the pair were \u201cworking closely together to deliver on the priorities of the British public\u201d.<\/p>\n
But asked whether he was satisfied with the pace of delivery under his government, the spokesperson said Starmer\u2019s \u201cgeneral position\u201d was that \u201che would like things to move further and faster\u201d.<\/p>\n
Several cabinet ministers are understood to have concerns about Wormald. \u201cOlly Robbins [the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office] would have been a much better appointment,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n
Former colleagues of Wormald at the Department of Health said they were unsurprised he had turned out to be unfit for the role. \u201cMorale was absolutely decimated in the DHSC, and under his watch we had no preparation for pandemics and the mishandling of infected blood,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Another added: \u201cHe was such an uninspired choice, and that\u2019s before you even consider the mission of rewiring the state.\u201d<\/p>\n A government adviser said: \u201cIt was the opposite of what we needed. The PM should not have been press-ganged into the four candidates that were presented to him and when it was clear none were suitable for that moment in time, we should have cast the net wider.\u201d<\/p>\n Starmer chose Wormald from a shortlist that included Robbins, Antonia Romeo, now the permanent secretary at the Home Office, and Tamara Finkelstein, the permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.<\/p>\n One Labour MP said it had been clear from the start that Wormald was not the right person for the job. \u201cAt some point they have to start questioning why they keep hiring shit people,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n Ousting him would raise questions about Starmer\u2019s political judgment after the departures of a string of other senior figures. \u201cEveryone knows how it looks. But worse would be to carry on and just attempt to find a way to sideline him,\u201d said another Labour source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Attacks on the UK\u2019s cabinet secretary \u201cstink of political cowardice\u201d, the head of the senior civil servants\u2019 union has said as concerns mount inside the government about his performance. The general secretary of the FDA, Dave Penman, said anonymous criticism of Chris Wormald was \u201chugely damaging\u201d to the government and its prospects of recruiting talented<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1839,5798,2346,17611,135,1913,2412,745,17610,2719],"class_list":{"0":"post-29862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-attacks","9":"tag-cabinet","10":"tag-civil","11":"tag-cowardice","12":"tag-leader","13":"tag-political","14":"tag-secretary","15":"tag-service","16":"tag-stink","17":"tag-union"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}