Sir Chris Wormald has stepped down as Britain's cabinet secretary after just 14 months in the role, making him the shortest-serving holder of the position in history. The departure came "by mutual agreement" on Thursday as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer reshapes his troubled Downing Street operation.
The shake-up extends beyond Wormald. Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff, and communications director Tim Allan both quit in the past week. Three civil servants now jointly fill the cabinet secretary role on an interim basis, while two interim chiefs of staff handle McSweeney's former duties and no communications chief is in place. Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart responded bluntly: «Britain isn't being governed.»
Leading Successor Faces Scrutiny
Dame Antonia Romeo, currently Home Office permanent secretary, is widely expected to replace Wormald. Downing Street views her as a «disrupter», and she is one of the three civil servants temporarily sharing the cabinet secretary responsibilities alongside Cat Little and James Bowler.
But her candidacy has drawn warnings. Lord Simon McDonald, her former boss at the Foreign Office, urged the recruitment process start «from scratch» to ensure «due diligence». Dame Antonia previously faced bullying allegations during her time as consul-general in New York, though the Cabinet Office later cleared her.
Government sources dismissed McDonald's intervention, calling it criticism with «absolutely no basis» from «a senior male official whose time has passed».
Substantial Payout Approved
Wormald receives £260,000 upon leaving, despite 35 years in the Civil Service. The payout required Starmer's personal sign-off because it did not meet Whitehall's value-for-money rules. His predecessor Sir Mark Sedwill, who served 23 months under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, received a similar payout of almost £250,000 in 2020, also requiring prime ministerial approval.
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
