Home Office curse hits search for GOD’s replacement
Quite apart from the eurozone, David Cameron faces another small headache over the next few days. Who should he pick as the new head of the civil service, to take over from Sir Gus O’Donnell at the end of this year?
Sir Gus combined the job with that of cabinet secretary, as had several of his predecessors, dating back to 1983.
But now the job is being split once more. So Jeremy Heywood becomes the new cabinet secretary, while somebody else is about to be appointed as head of the civil service. It’s been decided that the latter should be an existing permanent secretary of a government department, and that they will carry on running their existing department while also taking overall charge of the 500,000-strong civil service.
Interviews for the job took place last Friday.
There were three candidates, but I’m told these these have now been boiled down to two.
One is Sir Bob Kerslake, permanent secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government for just over a year. Indeed Sir Bob has only been a civil servant for three years, having previously been chief executive of Sheffield Council and spent most of his career in local government.
The other contender, more controversially, is Dame Helen Ghosh, permanent secretary at the Home Office.
The new job doesn’t seem to have been that popular, since two other possible contenders – Nicholas Macpherson of the Treasury and Suma Chakrabarti of Justice – both ruled themselves out.
David Cameron’s problem is that Dame Helen was originally strong favourite for the job, especially given that the prime minister has been in a aggressive pro-woman mode these last few weeks.
Despite her name, by the way, Ghosh does not carry the additional advantage of being Asian. Dame Helen has a very English background, in fact, and Ghosh is her married name. (Her husband is an Oxford historian.)
Dame Helen has only been running the Home Office since January, but before that spent five years in charge at DEFRA. She also effectively organised last year’s papal visit.
But it’s the recent Home Office part of her CV which must have set off the alarm bells in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.
Can the prime minister really appoint the top official of a department which is embroiled in a furious political row over its relationship with one of its arms-length bodies, the UK Border Agency?
The other big issue is how much Dame Helen advisedTheresa May when the home secretary made her strong public criticisms of Brodie Clark (the two women, incidentally, overlapped at the same Oxford college, St Hugh’s, in the late 70s).
Mr Clark has now embarked on a suit claiming constructive dismissal, and employment lawyers say he is likely to win. In effect, Brodie Clark is suing Dame Helen Ghosh.
How can Dame Helen act as head of the civil service, and simultaneously carry on as permanent secretary at the Home Office, when Clark’s case is due to be examined very publicly in an employment tribunal? That is likely to be heard early next year – which would hardly be a good start for Dame Helen at a time when civil servants as a whole are feeling pretty miserable, and want reassurance they are being led by someone who will defend their interests against the politicians.
The alternative – that the Home Office back down – would make Dame Helen’s putative position even less tenable.
But David Cameron would dearly love a woman.
Last Friday’s interviews were conducted by Sir Gus O’Donnell and the First Civil Service Commissioner, Sir David Normington, who was Ghosh’s predecessor at the Home Office. Jeremy Heywood sat in.
The plan was to come up with one single name to recommend to David Cameron. I understand that’s not yet been done, but should happen very soon.
And we could get an announcement within the next few days – towards the end of next week, I sense, and if not then the week after.
But I also suspect that if it hadn’t been for the row over the UK Border Agency, we might well have had an announcement this week.
Follow Michael Crick on Twitter: @michaellcrick