Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Sir Chris Wormald, the long-serving permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, has been appointed as the UK’s most senior civil servant.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has chosen Wormald as Cabinet Secretary as he seeks to take control of his Labor administration after violently the first five months, starting from a restart on Thursday.
“He brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical time in working on the changes this new government has begun,” Starmer said on Monday.
The £200,000-a-year Cabinet Secretary role involves advising the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, as well as overseeing the civil service.
Wormald beat three other shortlisted candidates: Sir Olly Robbins, the only outside candidate, and permanent secretaries Dame Antonia Romeo and Tamara Finkelstein.
He paid tribute to Starmer’s “ambitious” agenda for government which he said would require the civil service to “embrace an agenda of change in the way the British state works”.
The veteran official has been at the head of the Ministry of Health since 2016, a period that includes the time before the outbreak of Covid-19 and during the pandemic.
An independent public inquiry into the UK’s handling of Covid said in July that the government had “planned for the wrong pandemic” and was “poorly prepared”.
The NHS, which is overseen by the Department of Health, has also faced criticism during Wormald’s time as permanent secretary, including over long waiting lists for care.
Wormald will succeed outgoing Cabinet Secretary Simon Case on December 16. Case announced his intention to step down in September as he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed neurological condition.
As Whitehall’s longest-serving permanent secretary, Wormald was brought in to cover parts of the Cabinet Secretary role for the past year while Case was on sick leave.
Wormald was passed over for the job in favor of Case the last time it was on offer in 2020, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, despite entering the race as leader.
Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government think tank, said Wormald was “in many ways a conventional choice” given his experience and years of work on public service reform.
Previously, Wormald was permanent secretary at the Department for Education, led the economy and home affairs secretariat in the Cabinet Office and led the unit overseeing public service reforms.
“His challenge will be to lead and inspire the civil service to achieve what Sir Keir Starmer has described as a ‘total rewiring of the British state’,” White said.
Matt Hancock, UK Health Secretary from 2018 to 2021, told the Financial Times: “Chris is one of the finest public servants of his generation and an excellent choice for Cabinet Secretary.
“He’s a natural reformer, but he’s seen enough of every aspect of government life to know where the bear traps are.”
A health department official said, “He is a fixer and an administrator. I never saw him confused during the pandemic. If he saw the problem he would get into.”
The appointment was made by Starmer after an open tender process, in which Baroness Gisela Stuart, the first Civil Service Commissioner, and an independent commission narrowed the field. The prime minister interviewed the last four candidates last week.
Sir Chris Whitty will oversee the running of the health department until a new permanent secretary is appointed.
