PM to oust top mandarin in Whitehall revolution
Sedwill’s removal as head of Civil Service could be announced as early as this week in shake-up by No10
SIR MARK SEDWILL, the UK’s most senior civil servant, looks set to announce his departure as early as this week under Boris Johnson’s plans for a Whitehall revolution.
The ousting of Sir Mark will be the most obvious signal that a longplanned shake-up of the Civil Service by Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s chief aide, is gathering pace.
Several sources last night told Sunday Telegraph that an announcement would be made about Sir Mark’s future as early as tomorrow.
Sir Mark was appointed National Security Adviser by Theresa May in 2017 and then was made Cabinet Secretary a year later and controversially allowed to do both jobs.
One source said Sir Mark was “fighting to stay as National Security Adviser” and already seemed resigned to losing his post as Cabinet Secretary.
The source said: “He knows he has lost one half of his job. He is fighting to keep the national security one but they want to take everything off him and give him a non-job.”
Sir Mark was strongly tipped to be heading to Washington to replace Sir Kim Darroch as the UK ambassador when Mr Johnson entered No10.
However he was said to have clung on to his job after convincing the team around Mr Johnson that he could help them deliver Civil Service reform.
It emerged yesterday that Mr Cummings told a meeting of political aides last week that “a hard rain is going to fall” after setting out Whitehall’s failures during the response to the coronavirus. The Telegraph understands that earlier this month, Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, ordered a “zero sum” review of the Cabinet Office to evaluate whether it needed to be scaled back.
The surprise appointment a few weeks ago of Simon Case to the new post of permanent secretary in No10, created a rival power base to Sir Mark.
A friend of Sir Mark said last night: “He has been viciously briefed against. The whole Gove-Cummings axis has been sowing discord between the Prime Minister and Mark Sedwill.”
Asked about Sir Mark’s future last night, a spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “The Cabinet Secretary continues to work closely with his senior team to ensure the Government receives the best advice.”
The Prime Minister last night announced an overhaul of the way he runs No10, setting up three strategic committees to focus on domestic, international and economic priorities.
Mr Johnson will chair all three while Cabinet ministers will lead groups tasked with driving forward implementation, including a new economic operations committee to support the country’s economic recovery.
Government sources said the new committee structure in No10 followed “the successful model that the Government has been using during the coronavirus response, as well as to deliver and implement the British public’s decision to leave the EU”. It meant that there would be “specific teams for both strategy and implementation in order to maintain momentum and deliver Government’s plans more effectively”.
The row looks set overshadow a major speech by Mr Johnson on Tuesday when he will pledge to fast track the building of tens of billions of pounds worth of new schools and hospitals for
‘The whole Gove-Cummings axis has been sowing discord between the PM and Mark Sedwill’
towns and villages to boost the economy as the coronavirus pandemic recedes. Dubbed “Project Speed” by officials in No10, Mr Johnson wants to use as inspiration the speed with which Nightingale hospitals were established and ventilators developed for coronavirus patients.
The reforms will be applied in the first instance to existing plans for 40 hospitals, new prisons and a school rebuilding programme.
Government sources said they hoped that the reforms would “knock
‘[It will] cut delivery times by removing bottlenecks at every step of development and delivery’
months” off the time taken for building homes and other schemes which get “stuck in the mud”.
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, will chair a new Whitehall committee looking to clear away the red tape and delays that hold up major building programmes. It will be “tasked with accelerating progress so that every city, town and village can benefit more quickly from the improvements that infrastructure brings” as the UK recovers from the pandemic, sources say.
It will “cut delivery times by removing bottlenecks at every step of development and delivery” and tackle “outdated practices”.
It came as a poll found that for the first time, the UK public believed that Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, would make a better prime minister than Mr Johnson.
The Opinium survey found that twofifths (37 per cent) think that Sir Keir would do a better job leading the country, compared to 35 per cent who back Mr Johnson.