Sir Philip threw stability, trust and confidentiality out of the window

The following is an edited extract of conversation with a senior civil servant

As a senior civil servant, when a new minister comes in you are building a new relationship. Sometimes those relationships work, sometimes they don’t.

Convention is that if they don’t, you simply accept that as the senior civil servant you move to a different part of the Civil Service.

Everyone has times in their careers, whether in the private or public sector, when you and your boss don’t click and the fit isn’t right. In the Civil Service there are ways of addressing things if that’s the case.

In [Sir] Philip [Rutnam]’s case, he should have been saying, “You’re the democratically elected Home Secretary and it’s me who’s got to go.” It sounds like he wasn’t accepting of that. I think it sets a dangerous precedent – senior civil servants trying to take down a democratically elected minister. Even if her behaviour was bad, you just do not do this.

This is the only time I have felt the need to speak to a journalist. I am concerned that Philip is being portrayed as having the support of the senior civil service. But most of us disagree and think it’s dangerous territory.

What this looks like is Philip, rather than following the normal convention, has decided to say, ‘No, I should stay in the Home Office,’ and therefore has declared war on his boss. It’s just extraordinary. For me it just crossed so many lines for senior civil servants.

He has, in effect, put a question mark on the permanency of the permanent under secretary role. The argument is stability, trust and confidentiality, but he’s just thrown that out of the window.

If [Dominic] Cummings is looking for an excuse for why the people leading the departments shouldn’t be civil servants it is the perfect case study.

Philip presented [his public resignation] as the noble thing but ... it was exactly the opposite: self-serving, selfish and undermined the integrity of the rest of the senior civil service.

I’ve been in meetings with her [Ms Patel] during her time in government. I sensed that she was frustrated.

Again there’s a skill, that appears to have been lost in a lot of private offices, which is you get to know the emotional signals, get to understand the body language and, when you start to see minsters and secretaries of state getting frustrated, your job is actually to try to roll it back, not exacerbate it.

I got the sense that she was facing opposition from her officials, who disagreed with what she was trying to do. I would have had the conversation afterwards. I wouldn’t have undermined my secretary of state in front of other officials.

I have seen her get frustrated. I don’t think it was bullying. I think it was frank and direct. I would have been bloody furious.

It was appropriate. If you don’t take the subtle hint and you undermine your secretary of state, what response do you expect?

The role she is in is one of the toughest in government. The private office is where ministers need to be able to let off steam.

If Philip Rutnam couldn’t manage some of that, that’s his failure – not hers.

The Sunday Telegraph’s

‘When you see minsters getting frustrated, your job is actually to try to roll it back, not exacerbate it’