Chris Wormald was appointed cabinet secretary in December 2024 (Alamy)
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Chris Wormald has agreed with Prime Minister Keir Starmer to stand down as cabinet secretary and head of the civil service.
For an interim period, the responsibilities of the cabinet secretary will be shared by Cabinet Office permanent secretary Catherine Little, Home Office permanent secretary Dame Antonia Romeo, and Treasury permanent secretary James Bowler.
A new cabinet secretary will be appointed “shortly”, according to the government.
Wormald was appointed as head of the civil service in December 2024, having previously served as the permanent secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education.
In a statement on Thursday, Wormald said: “It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as a civil servant for the past 35 years, and a particular distinction to lead the Service as Cabinet Secretary.
“I want to place on record my sincere thanks to the extraordinary civil servants, public servants, ministers, and advisers I have worked with. Our country is fortunate to have such dedicated individuals devoted to public service, and I wish them every success for the future.”
Starmer said: “I am very grateful to Sir Chris for his long and distinguished career of public service, spanning more than 35 years, and for the support that he has given me over the past year. I have agreed with him that he will step down as Cabinet Secretary today. I wish him the very best for the future.”
It has been widely briefed that Starmer intends to replace Wormald with Romeo.
However, in an extraordinary intervention on Wednesday, former senior civil servant Simon McDonald said the government must carry out “more due diligence” before appointing her.
McDonald, the former permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, told Channel 4: “The due diligence needs to be thorough. If the candidate mentioned in the media is the one, in my view, the due diligence has some way still to go.”
The Home Office permanent secretary was previously investigated by the Foreign Office while serving as Consul General in New York in 2017, over allegations of bullying, harassment, discrimination and misusing expenses.
Wormald is the latest senior figure to depart the top of government in recent days.
Morgan McSweeney has resigned as Starmer’s chief of staff, and Tim Allan has stepped down as the No 10 director of communications, amid severe criticism of Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite being aware of his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
