Why Keir Starmer’s stinging criticism of the civil service will backfire

Can Chris Wormald, the new cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, achieve the task Keir Starmer has set him: “Nothing less than the complete re-wiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform?”

It won’t be easy – and Starmer has unwittingly made Wormald’s task harder. In the foreword to his “plan for change”, Starmer accused Whitehall of being “comfortable with failure” and having a “declinist mentality”. In his launch speech, he angered civil service unions by claiming “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.

They accused Starmer of a “betrayal” because he and his ministers assured officials on taking office they would not scapegoat them or repeat Conservative attacks on an obstructive Whitehall “blob”. Incoming Labour ministers were welcomed as a breath of fresh air by their officials but now the atmosphere is poisonous.

Referring to Starmer’s “tepid bath” remarks, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union for senior civil servants, said: “Try that language as a CEO and see if it boosts productivity.”

Although Starmer insisted he did not want to “drain the swamp” (like Donald Trump), he is the latest in a long line of prime ministers to vent their frustration at the Whitehall machine. As Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff and now Starmer’s national security adviser, put it: “When you arrive in Number 10 and pull on the levers of power, you discover they are not connected to anything.”

Ministers tell me Starmer’s criticism is justified. Some have been shocked by the quality of the civil service they discovered and by how slowly the machine cranks into gear. Wormald will now have to cool tempers on both sides as he tries to get Whitehall behind the government’s six priority targets. He will face fire from both camps as ministers demand action and civil servants urge him to defend their independence because they cannot answer back.

A surprise choice, described by colleagues as “safe rather than spectacular”, Wormald is Whitehall’s longest-serving permanent secretary after eight years at the Department of Health and Social Care. He won Starmer’s support by convincing him he is a reformer. But there are doubts whether the consummate Whitehall insider will want to bring in outsiders to key jobs, as Starmer favours.

Wormald will need to make cross-departmental working happen; ministers grumble there is still a “silo mentality” in Whitehall. His other challenge will be to introduce AI into public services; it could deliver huge savings and boost productivity, which has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

I think there is plenty of room for improvement in the civil service. Officials are risk-averse, frightened of making mistakes and demoralised after being pilloried by the Tories. They should innovate more and rely less on the old ways.

However, I believe the Starmer government’s stuttering start is more the fault of Labour politicians than civil servants. The party was remarkably unprepared for government. The “plan for change” Starmer finally unveiled on Thursday should have been published before the election, or at least soon afterwards, which would have made Labour’s early spending decisions and the inevitable trade-offs easier. The PM’s speech felt like a manifesto launch without an election date.

In opposition, some shadow ministers made a lazy assumption their lack of detailed plans would be bailed out by the Rolls-Royce machine awaiting them in Whitehall. But this machine is not self-starting; it needs politicians in the driving seat. “We can advise them on implementation, but we can’t tell them what they want to do,” one Whitehall insider told me.

Ministers have made unforced errors. Under Starmer, Downing Street was underpowered, without enough economic and foreign affairs advisers, leaving the Treasury to fill the vacuum – and to unwisely target pensioners and farmers. Starmer relied too heavily on Sue Gray, the Whitehall veteran who became his chief of staff, to get the machine purring.

But her vision of departments enjoying autonomy was at odds with the joined-up, cross-departmental working Starmer’s “mission-driven government” rightly seeks to inject. After Gray’s departure, the PM reverted to the “strong centre” in Downing Street he should have had from the start. He should now chair the five “mission boards”, as he originally promised, to give them more clout, instead of leaving it to departmental ministers. As one senior Blair aide recalls: “The best way to get things done was to say ‘Tony wants’.”

Civil servants have valid complaints about a lack of political direction and leadership. But now they have no excuses as they finally have their marching orders in the new targets.

In turn, Starmer needs to get the Whitehall machine onside; attacking it will alienate the officials he needs to implement change. However difficult that proves, the PM should resist the temptation to play the Tories’ blame game. That will make it harder to achieve the targets on which he has now staked his premiership.