Some years ago Antonia Romeo, now the Cabinet Secretary, was stuck in a boring meeting about civil service reform. She regarded the plan as inadequate to create the leaner, meaner machine she hoped to see. ‘Basically you’ve given me a Ford, when I’m more of a Ferrari girl.’ It was a moment which summed up the official who is now accruing arguably more power than any of her predecessors. Romeo is glamorous, suspiciously racy and likes to move fast towards her goals.
When Andy Burnham became Prime Minister she secured a seat in the Prime Minister’s outer office, the first time a cabinet secretary has ever sat there. She has written her own job description (signed off by Keir Starmer and now Burnham). This week it emerged that she is planning to take new formal powers to overrule permanent secretaries in other Whitehall departments.
Romeo and Burnham, both natural charmers, have a ‘warm’ relationship. ‘There has been much fluttering of eyelashes,’ says one insider. ‘And that’s just the PM.’ Romeo, an Arsenal fan, has been joshing with Britain’s most famous Evertonian about football. He shares the view of one official that: ‘She is the grippiest, grippy person you’ve ever encountered.’ She sees him as ‘quite visionary’.
Visitors to Antonia Romeo’s private office note that she drinks her tea from a ‘bossing it’ mug
Romeo is taking very seriously the part of her job description that reads ‘principal policy adviser’ to the PM. ‘She’s being the uber-PPS, which was the job she always wanted,’ says a former Downing Street official. Some say this has made life uncomfortable for Burnham’s actual PPS, Dan York-Smith. Visitors to her private office note that she drinks her tea from a ‘bossing it’ mug.
So what is going on? The simplest explanation is the one Romeo tells her colleagues: ‘It’s the last-chance saloon for the civil service and we have got to raise our game.’
Just as the political class has been diminished by years of failure, allies say she believes the mandarins have to prove that an impartial, professional civil service can deliver for the government of the day or they will be replaced by political appointees. If Burnham fails, the possibility of Nigel Farage replacing him rises. Danny Kruger, in charge of Reform’s preparations for government, says they would scrap the post of cabinet secretary altogether.
A former Cabinet Office official explains: ‘There are only two sources of authority in the bureaucracy: control over information and control over money. Money is almost entirely controlled by the Treasury. What Antonia desires is control over the flow of information that reaches the Prime Minister.’
Some former colleagues think she’s trying to do too much. ‘She’s over her skis, I think, on her confidence in her ability to do everything by herself,’ one says. ‘She’s got extraordinary abilities, but she is not good at promoting rivals she sees as a threat.’ The same source says Romeo should have appointed ‘someone she is scared of’ to run No. 10 North, rather than affable Sam Lister.
To control this dual process of civil service reform and consolidation of her position, Romeo has set up a review. It has three parts: ‘delivery and results’, ‘innovation and productivity’ and ‘pride and trust’. The first is about getting stuff done and making sure the half a million civil servants are focused on what the government wants to deliver. The second includes plans to reward high achievers and dismiss the failing. Romeo has already introduced performance-related pay for the senior civil service for the first time.
Critics view the Romeo Review as the thin end of a wedge. Damien Shannon of the Prosperity Institute warns it would be ‘a grave mistake’ to ‘use legislation to entrench existing bureaucratic power structures’. Kruger adds: ‘Burnham’s got a good analysis, which is that the centre is both too large and underpowered. But he’s being bamboozled by Antonia into imagining that the answer is to empower the civil service and the Cabinet Secretary. We’re in a crisis; we’ve got to get a grip. But it shouldn’t be the civil service getting a grip, it should be ministers. I don’t think it’s the right way to defend themselves against a Reform government. What they should be doing is demonstrating that they can deliver for the government of the day.’
A Romeo ally says she actually agrees with this: ‘She doesn’t think it’s her job to decide for a democratically elected government whether they should have an impartial civil service. But she wants to make it as good as it can possibly be so that anybody elected would say: “Why would I not want this brilliant civil service?”’
There is another widely held conspiracy theory about the review – that it is pre-empting the outcome of a judicial review brought by Sir Oliver Robbins into his dismissal as permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, over Peter Mandelson’s vetting. The verdict could have huge implications for the ability to dismiss permanent secretaries. I have yet to find anyone who thinks the government will win. Only the Foreign Secretary has the legal power to sack the FCDO permanent secretary and Robbins will argue his dismissal by Starmer was illegal. ‘One of the reasons they haven’t filled the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office job is because, legally, they think they might have to give it back to him,’ a friend notes. But, as the ex-mandarin says: ‘If they lose, Antonia can say we are already putting in place the necessary changes.’
My understanding is that Romeo is not committed to new legislation, seeing a new bill as a target for her enemies. A former official, speaking without her knowledge, says: ‘Antonia is the centre of gravity. She doesn’t need more law to be powerful… The thing about secret power is it’s best if you keep it secret and vague… and only exercise it quietly while everyone’s looking the other way.’
Romeo has previously been a Mar-mite figure. When her appointment was announced, hundreds of officials put a ‘thumbs down’ against the news item on the civil service intranet. However, most mandarins have accepted that they must pull together. And they like that she has more clout than her predecessor, Chris Wormald. ‘She knows what she wants and has the ear of the PM, unlike Chris,’ a serving official says.
The big question is whether Burnham’s successors care about Romeo’s. When Farage was asked about the £5 million gift from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne, he once remarked: ‘I’ll spend it on Ferraris if I want.’ His view of Fords is unknown.
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