Sir Keir Starmer is facing growing pressure not to rush through the appointment of a controversial mandarin to run the civil service as fresh concerns emerged about her record.
The Prime Minister is already under fire from within Whitehall as well as from political opponents for forcing out Sir Chris Wormald after barely a year, as he desperately tries to save his premiership.
There are also concerns that he will now try to avoid holding a full recruitment process in order to hand the job to his favoured candidate for Cabinet Secretary, top Home Office official Dame Antonia Romeo.
Last night Downing Street was urged to look at a series of debacles that took place on her watch during her time at the Ministry of Justice.
It comes after a former top diplomat made an extraordinary intervention to urge No 10 to carry out due diligence on her, amid hotly disputed allegations of bullying when she was HM Consul General to New York that she was later cleared of.
‘Given his record of appalling judgement and the revolving door at the top of his Government, Keir Starmer must be very careful about who he appoints as his next Cabinet Secretary,’ a Tory source told the Daily Mail.
As the Mail on Sunday first reported back in 2017, Dame Antonia was behind a disastrous £4billion privatisation of the probation service that later had to be scrapped.
She was in charge of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme and said in 2014: ‘My job as senior responsible officer is to make sure we deliver the benefits of the programme. We need to really understand what’s going on – and there are no prizes for not listening.’
But the reforms, which put private firms in charge of supervising criminals leaving prison, were branded ‘irredeemably flawed’ by the watchdog and eventually completely abandoned.
Dame Antonia Romeo (pictured) is the frontrunner to become the first female head of the civil service
Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, told this newspaper: ‘She dutifully implemented Chris Grayling’s decision but a number of people felt at the time she could have pushed back harder on that.
‘She hung around long enough to implement it but not to pick up the pieces as the mess developed.’
Dame Antonia returned to the Ministry of Justice in 2021 as its Permanent Secretary and when asked by MPs about the probation service a year ago insisted: ‘It is doing an absolutely excellent job.’
But a damning report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concluded: ‘Performance of the service in England and Wales has worsened since the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) brought probation under full public control in 2021.’
Some also blame her for the MoJ’s ‘catastrophic’ decision to sign a 10-year lease on HMP Dartmoor, costing taxpayers up to £100million, in March 2022 despite knowing the site had high levels of radon gas. The jail has been closed on safety grounds since July 2024.
PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said last month it was a ‘perfect example of a department reaching for a solution, any solution, in a blind panic and under pressure’.
Dame Antonia was challenged by the committee last year and asked if it was ‘fair that we have paid the Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall rent for a radon site’.
She replied simply: ‘It is the contract.’
Dame Antonia (right) became known for hosting glitzy parties for celebrities such as Vogue editor Anna Wintour (pictured) when she served as HM Consul General to New York
However one person who worked with her at the MoJ said that although she had not been a great success there, a lot of the problems were beyond her control.
And the senior figure said she would be the best candidate to now run the civil service.
‘She’s so bright, she gives practical advice and she plays Whitehall chess quite effectively.
‘She’s a ruthless operator who serves her political master. I’m not sure she inspires massive confidence in her underlings but you want someone who is loyal to the Secretary of State, not the blob.’
And a Government source said: ‘Antonia is a disrupter. She isn’t settled with the status quo. She is one of the few senior officials that has always fought against the computer says no culture embedded in the British state.
‘In light of the crisis we face as a country, Antonia is exactly the leadership the civil service need to embrace systemic reform to rewire the state, take on vested interests and deliver for the British people.’
Meanwhile a former Cabinet Secretary urged Sir Keir to ‘get a grip’ of his special advisers after the briefings against ousted Sir Chris, who is now in line for a £260,000 payoff after the PM brushed aside warnings from officials that there was no reason to sack him.
Lord O’Donnell told the BBC: ‘Where it’s shabby is the fact that we’ve got to this place and that they have briefed anonymously against the cabinet secretary saying it’s not working.’
