Keir Starmer has appointed Chris Wormald as his new Cabinet Secretary, the most senior civil servant in Britain, to replace Simon Case.
Mr Case will step down on December 16, after just four years in the job and courting a number of prominent controversies.
In a statement this afternoon, the Prime Minister thanked Mr Case for her service to the country, despite reported tensions between the new Labour administration and the Boris Johnson-appointed civil service chief.
Sir Keir continued: “I am delighted that Chris Wormald has agreed to become the next Cabinet Secretary. He brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical moment in the work of change this new government has begun.”
“To change this country, we must change the way government serves this country.
“That is what Mission-led government will do. From breaking down silos across government to harnessing the incredible potential of technology and innovation, it will require nothing less than the complete re-wiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform.”
Chris Wormald is already being labelled the pick that no one expected, and was understood to be in the running against former Brexit negotiator Oliver Robbins, and John Lewis chair Sharon White.
He has served as the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Health since 2016, after serving in the same role at the Department for Education from 2012 to 2016.
In a statement, Mr Wormald said he is “delighted” to have been appointed to the “privileged role”.
He added: “I look forward to working with leaders across Government, to ensure that the Civil Service has the skills they need to deliver across the breadth of the country.”
However the appointment has been met with scorn by Dominic Cummings, who tore into Mr Wormald’s record at the Department of Health during the pandemic.
In a furious tweet, Mr Cummings said it is further proof of how Westminster is “truly pathological”.
He fumed: “It is a truly beautiful, artistic appointment to appoint as the most powerful official – a role 100x more powerful than ministers (other than the PM) – the official who told us all in Q1 2020 that we were ‘the best prepared country in the world’ for Covid, who was responsible for the PM being told by then-Cabinet Secretary on Thursday 12 March to go on TV to advocate for people holding ‘CHICKENPOX PARTIES’ so that as many as possible caught covid as fast as possible – the official who has presided over the implosion of the NHS and A&E.”
“The person who spoke out and said on 12/3/20 that chickenpox parties was madness and explained that the official plan was a farce was [special advisor] Ben Warner.
“So Wormald then tried to BLOCK Warner attending SAGE meetings.
“Even on Wed 18 March, Wormald wrote to the Cabinet Secretary – what’s the point of doing anything much, the NHS will be smashed anyway, we just have to accept 500k-1m dead with our ‘world leading’ plan.
“Today should be a wake up call to all investors in UK and young talent – the Westminster system is totally determined to resist any change & will continue all the things of the past 20 years that have driven us into crisis, the war of Whitehall on the productive and civilised forces in this country will continue to the knife.”
