'Value for money' row erupts over £260,000 payout to former Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald
A row has erupted over the sacking of Britain’s most senior civil servant because it has cost the taxpayer over a quarter of a million pounds.
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Sir Chris Wormald was sacked as cabinet secretary on Thursday after just 14 months.
Sir Keir Starmer was warned that Sir Chris would have to receive a redundancy payment that could not be justified, but the Prime Minister is understood to have overruled their concerns and agreed to the payout.
The Cabinet Office said he left under ‘mutual agreement” with Sir Keir.
Senior Government officials refused to sign off sacking him due to the lack of grounds for his departure, according to reports.
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Government minister Emma Hardy declined to reply whether getting rid of him represented ‘value for money’ as she was interviewed this morning.
The prime minister is understood to be planning to install Britain’s first female cabinet secretary by replacing Sir Chris with Dame Antonia Romeo, the current permanent secretary at the Home Office
Sir Keir Starmer is said to have blamed Sir Chris for failings in the vetting process for the disgraced peer Peter Mandelson. The Prime Minister launched a shake-up of No10 in the wake of the highly damaging scandal over Mandelson’s links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
After 35 years in the Civil Service, Sir Chris is now the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in history, lasting less than the 23 months Sir Mark Sedwill held the position for under Theresa May and Boris Johnson.