Antonia Romeo has put Whitehall’s management culture at the centre of her reform agenda, but her speech leaves the test of that agenda to come. Calling the civil service “tame, reactive and risk-averse”, the cabinet secretary said she would introduce a new approach to performance management and “rewire” how the system works.
The immediate commitments are clear enough. Speaking at the London School of Economics, Romeo said managers would receive stronger processes, training and support to reward officials making the biggest impact and to take decisive action on poor performance. She also said she wanted to reduce churn, where officials move sideways for pay rises instead of being rewarded for remaining in a role and seeing work through.
That diagnosis deserves more than a branding exercise. A civil service that cannot recognise sustained expertise, tackle weak management or work across departmental boundaries will struggle to deliver under tight public finances. Romeo is right to identify performance and organisational responsibility as practical problems, rather than treating every failure as a matter of individual official temperament.
But the speech did not set out the standards by which performance will be judged, who will be covered, when the new arrangements will begin or what safeguards and appeal routes will apply. Those details matter because a tougher system can improve accountability only if managers have consistent criteria and staff can understand how decisions are reached.
Romeo is also overseeing a review of the civil service’s organisation, due in the spring, covering departmental structures, cross-cutting delivery, AI and “devolution by default”. She argued that AI, subject to controls and guardrails, could remove bureaucracy and leave officials more time for creative, interactive and decision-making work.
That is a plausible case for reform, especially where technology reduces routine administration. Yet the government should now turn its language about rewiring the state into published measures: how rewards will work, how poor performance will be handled, how churn will be measured and what organisational changes the spring review recommends. Without those benchmarks, a forceful critique of Whitehall risks becoming another statement of intent rather than a reform the public and civil servants can judge.
Sources
- The Guardian · UK · Source date: 2026-11-11
Independent editorial content. WUA is not affiliated with any political party. 2026-11-11