Cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo calls Whitehall "tame, reactive and risk-averse"
Antonia Romeo, the UK's cabinet secretary and most senior civil servant, has said that Whitehall is "tame, reactive and risk-averse" and that she intends to "rewire" the civil service. She made the remarks in a lecture at the London School of Economics on 11 November 2026, as The Guardian reported.
"Whitehall" is the common name for the British government's departments and the permanent officials who run them. Civil servants are distinct from the elected ministers who set policy, and the cabinet secretary leads that workforce.
Romeo listed three criticisms the service needs to address: that it is "tame and risk-averse", that it is "reactive, not strategic", and that it is "siloed, not working across boundaries", meaning departments work in isolation from one another. She said fundamental reform to improve productivity was essential given the "tight fiscal context", the limited public money available to government.
On pay and performance, Romeo set out what she called a "completely new approach" to managing the performance of civil servants. She said recent changes to increase bonuses for high-performing senior civil servants were "just the start". The new approach, she said, would reward brilliant delivery, valuable expertise and staying with a task until it is finished.
She also said she would aim to reduce churn, the pattern in which officials move sideways between posts to win pay rises rather than being rewarded for staying in the same job.
Romeo said artificial intelligence could make the civil service "more human" by cutting bureaucracy, leaving officials more time for creativity, interaction and decision-making.
She is overseeing a review of how the civil service is organised, due in the spring, alongside an update to its code.
Andy Burnham and his deputy, Louise Haigh, were in the audience. A government spokesperson said after the speech that Burnham backs the cabinet secretary's vision for a civil service fit for the future.
