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The Cabinet Secretary is set to be ousted by the end of the year after losing the confidence of senior Downing Street figures, according to reports. Sir Chris Wormald, Britain’s most senior civil servant, has been the subject of repeated negative briefings and is seen by some in No 10 as “the embodiment of Whitehall groupthink”. He is tipped to be replaced by crossbench peer Baroness Casey of Blackstock, who is viewed as a capable troubleshooter, according to The Times, which first reported on the claims. The Covid inquiry is expected to be used as a pretext to sack Sir Chris, who was the most senior civil servant in the Department for Health and Social Care during the pandemic. Sir Chris, who was appointed by the Prime Minister in December last year, was permanent secretary at the department throughout the pandemic. During hearings in 2024, it was claimed he had advocated mass exposure to the virus through “chickenpox parties” to encourage herd immunity. He has already faced criticism in a report produced by the inquiry, which found there had been a “lack of adequate leadership” in preparations for Covid. It also stated that the Civil Service and governments “failed their citizens” at the time of his appointment. If ousted soon, Sir Chris will have spent less than two years in the job. Over the summer, some Whitehall officials said Sir Keir Starmer’s team was experiencing “buyer’s remorse” over his choice of cabinet secretary. They suggest his decision to appoint a career civil servant rather than an outsider who could “rewire the state” left many bewildered. A senior Whitehall figure told The Times: “Chris is a parody of every Civil Service stereotype. “He is given clear instructions on an issue and says we will be able to deliver it only after we’ve commissioned a wide-reaching review that reports sometime in the mid-2080s.” Dominic Cummings said on Saturday that the Cabinet Secretary was “part of the old broken system”. The former adviser to Boris Johnson, who sought to overhaul the Civil Service while in No 10, said: “The old system has shot themselves in both feet, they’ve blown both feet off with Starmer and Wormald, because they’ve made it conventional wisdom now that the old system is broken and has to be succeeded by something much more radical.” Baroness Casey was appointed as the Government’s lead non-executive director in January this year, having previously authored a report into grooming gangs, which said the ethnicity of perpetrators was being “shied away from”. Her conclusion forced Sir Keir to U-turn and announce a national inquiry into the scandal after months of resistance. She is also the head of a commission into the future of social care. A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The Cabinet Secretary continues to have the support of the Prime Minister and they are working closely together to deliver on the priorities of the British public.”
