Simon Case is set to keep his job as cabinet secretary under Liz Truss after previously having been expected to be ousted.
Case, a former private secretary to Prince William, is believed to have impressed the UK prime minister during talks over forming a government and the energy support package.
She had been thought likely to replace him with James Bowler, the permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade, but government sources confirmed she had a change of heart.
Case, the most senior civil servant in the government, was brought in by Boris Johnson to help turn around his ailing government but he became part of the Partygate story when it emerged that a party had been held in his private office.
He was stripped of responsibility for the investigation into gatherings during lockdown, which was handed to Sue Gray. Many civil servants thought he would resign for having overseen the civil service during the scandal, during which some officials were fined for breaking lockdown laws.
Case’s revived fortunes are markedly different from those of Tom Scholar, who was removed from his post of permanent secretary of the Treasury as one of the first acts of the Truss administration.
The ousting of Scholar has provoked outrage in Whitehall, as he is widely considered to have been a competent and steady hand at the Treasury.
However, Truss repeatedly criticised “Treasury thinking” during her leadership campaign and is known to want a more tax-led approach to boosting growth.
Dave Penman, the head of the FDA union for senior civil servants, said the move by the new government was a “sign of weakness” as Scholar was one of those “really well-regarded, clever competent people who everyone admired and served for countless chancellors” and strong enough to challenge politicians with evidence. “This is a demonstration that they don’t want challenge. He’s one of the most experienced civil servants of his generation. Why would you not want him at the heart of government?”
Other senior Whitehall sources pointed out that Case’s first big challenge as the head of the civil service under Truss was how he reacted to her move to sack Scholar – and from her point of view he passed that test.
Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and former civil servant, said Case “should have refused to go along with Scholar’s sacking”.
“It is a sign of his feebleness that – if he tried to warn against it – they went ahead anyway. He had already lost much respect in the civil service over his handling of Partygate. Now?” she said.
