Sir Olly Robbins is bringing legal action against the government over his dismissal as head of the diplomatic service, the FDA union announced. BBC

The union, which represents senior civil servants, said the decision to sack Sir Olly rested on what it called a "grievous misunderstanding" of government vetting procedures. It intends to argue that Sir Keir Starmer lacked the legal authority to dismiss him in the first place — a challenge that, if successful, would go well beyond the merits of this particular case and touch on the prime minister's power to remove permanent secretaries.

Sir Olly was appointed to the top Foreign Office job in early 2025, having previously served as the government's lead official in the Brexit negotiations with the EU — the role that made him a familiar, if not always comfortable, figure in Westminster during the previous decade. His dismissal followed the row over the vetting of Lord Mandelson, whose security clearance became the subject of parliamentary scrutiny after questions were raised about how it had been handled.

Central to the FDA's case is a claim about what Sir Olly was, and was not, permitted to tell ministers. The union said he was under an obligation not to disclose to ministers the detail of the vetting process that led to the decision on Lord Mandelson's clearance. Giving evidence to MPs, Sir Olly said he had received an oral briefing on the case rather than sight of the written documentation produced by UK Security Vetting (UKSV). In that briefing, he was told the agency regarded Lord Mandelson as a "borderline case" but that the Foreign Office might wish to grant clearance subject to "appropriate risk management." BBC

Sir Olly has defended his handling of the matter by pointing to the confidentiality that vetting processes are meant to carry. He told MPs such processes must "remain absolutely confidential" — a position that, taken with the FDA's account of his obligations to ministers, forms the spine of his defence: that he acted within the constraints of a system designed to keep vetting judgments away from political oversight, and was dismissed for doing so.

The FDA's language on the sacking itself was blunt. Dave Penman, the union's general secretary, has led the response, and the union said there was "no fair procedure involved in his dismissal" and "no process at all." That view was first set out in April, when the FDA condemned the prime minister's decision, and has now hardened into formal legal action. FDA

For his part, Sir Olly has struck a notably reluctant tone. He said he was pursuing the claim "reluctantly," and suggested the whole episode could have been avoided. The legal action would have been unnecessary, he said, had the prime minister "simply apologised for his mistake and made amends for the distress and cost it has caused me and my family." That framing — apology and amends, rather than reinstatement as the primary demand — suggests the claim may be as much about vindication as about his old job.

The dispute sits at the intersection of two separate questions that Westminster tends to conflate: whether Lord Mandelson's clearance was handled correctly, and whether the official who oversaw that handling was sacked lawfully. The FDA's legal strategy appears designed to keep those questions distinct, arguing that whatever view one takes of the vetting decision, the dismissal of the person who managed it followed no recognisable process.

The broader context here concerns the position of permanent secretaries more widely. A legal finding that the prime minister overstepped his authority in removing the head of the diplomatic service would carry weight for the civil service as a whole, not just for Sir Olly. Permanent secretaries operate under long-standing conventions about ministerial accountability and confidentiality in security matters; a court test of those boundaries is not something Whitehall will have wanted, whichever way it goes.

No date has yet been set for the legal proceedings, and the government has not offered a detailed public response to the FDA's characterisation of the dismissal as procedurally deficient. The case adds to a run of tensions between senior officials and the current government over the limits of ministerial power, and it will be watched closely by permanent secretaries elsewhere in Whitehall who will want clarity on how far security-vetting confidentiality can be invoked as both a shield and, in Sir Olly's telling, a source of professional jeopardy.