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Cummings, Johnson’s senior adviser, has previously complained that “almost no one gets fired” at Whitehall, and conservatives are reviewing human resource structures within the service, including the hiring, training and firing of staff.
Johnson fired the starting gun for a Whitehall reform program in June when he merged the Department for International Development (DfID) with the Foreign Office.
Meanwhile, a number of senior officials have left their posts since the elections.
On Saturday Lord Agnew, Minister of State for Efficiency and Transformation, said: “It is important to emphasize from the outset that while I believe the system is broken, it is not the people, and good people are trapped within the system.
“I have worked with public officials for more than 10 years … 180 years ago they put some rigor in terms of promotion tests and a lot of that has been diluted and we do not have adequate technical evaluations before Promotions are made.
“So this results in a desperate shortage of practical skills, financial acquisitions and contract management.”
Addressing an online event at the Tory conference, hosted by Policy Exchange, Lord Agnew added: “There is an obsession with politics as a theoretical line of thought … Everyone talks about diversity. The champion of diversity is a place. Too safe to be in. But it misses a vital point: diversity of geography and cognition We have the most overly centralized bureaucracy in the Western world.
“And while it may be diverse in color and gender, which I absolutely applaud, the overwhelming majority are metropolitan urban thinkers.
“This week’s little dispute … over consultants and consulting addiction sums it up.
“It is better to be in a state of learned helplessness and hire consultants than to help public officials develop the right skills.”
“We marginalize our best young men,” complained Lord Agnew.
Baroness Finn warned of a “risk-averse culture that really slows things down tremendously and it’s the people who walk the line and keep the power dry that keep going.”
Meanwhile, Issue 10 confirmed that the queen’s upcoming speech would “deliver on our manifesto promises,” as Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, wrote to the Cabinet in pursuit of policies designed to “deliver on the internal priorities of the Prime Minister”.
