Liz Truss has called on Dominic Cummings to ax hundreds of “woke” civil service posts, it has emerged, as she vows to stand up to Whitehall’s “groupthink”.
A leaked document shows that when she was international trade secretary in 2020, her office called for the scrapping of diversity and inclusion roles in the civil service, along with strategic communications teams.
She signed a document to Boris Johnson’s chief adviser criticizing “risk-averse” Whitehall for its “liberal groupthink” and bemoaning the difficulty of sacking underperforming staff.
Last night her allies said the document accurately represented how she would seek to govern if she won the leadership election and became prime minister.
They said she was still concerned about the huge “waste” in government and the “inefficiency” of much of the civil service.
A source close to Miss Truss said: “As Prime Minister, Liz will not be held captive by the orthodoxy of Whitehall and the Treasury.
“She will press ahead with tough reforms and push things through the labyrinthine system of Whitehall. She is absolutely the person to get things done and challenge the groupthink of public servants.”
Truss is “skeptical” about diversity and inclusion teams
The source added that she is “skeptical” about diversity and inclusion teams. She participated in eliminating unconscious bias training and instructed all departments to review their partnerships with Stonewall.
The document was written in 2020 after Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings asked special advisers for ideas on how to save money.
The response was written by Miss Truss’s special adviser but reflects the minister’s views.
He calls for greater politicization of the civil service to make it more like the US and Australia, where a much larger proportion of civil servants are politically appointed.
In the UK, the majority of civil servants are career civil servants who work for any elected government.
The document states: “At the highest levels of the civil service (eg SCS3) there is a lack of political understanding and a tendency towards liberal groupthink leading to significant delays in the delivery of ministerial priorities.”
It calls for “an increased number of political appointees in ministerial offices” and “a greater role for the Secretary of State in appointing SCS roles”.
The report calls for “eliminating or reducing” the size of the diversity and inclusion, strategic communications, marketing and human resources teams.
On diversity and inclusion, it says, “This team should be scrapped. We have four people on this team for a relatively small department.
If this plan were implemented in Whitehall and the public sector, it would mean the loss of hundreds of jobs
“It’s not clear what these people are doing”
Discussing strategic communications and marketing officials, the report said: “Since we joined, it is not clear what these people are doing or how they are fulfilling the objectives of SoS / No 10.”
And about the HR team, she said: “That team is currently over 100 people. Given the size of the department, this could be significantly reduced.
The document calls for a review by the Cabinet Secretary into the introduction of HR practices such as “warning people and actually dismissing them”.
It says: “Ultimately, underperforming staff is a major obstacle to effective and timely decision-making. The department will get people moving instead of dealing with constant poor performance.”
The filing also calls for the appointment of a private practice legal expert to challenge the civil service’s in-house lawyers.
“The legal team is highly risk-averse and tends to look for reasons not to take action, rather than how to do it while minimizing legal risk,” it said. “It runs counter to the work of lawyers in private practice, focused on client delivery.”
It criticized the way the permanent secretary had to sign too many documents himself, which she said “slowed things down considerably” and exposed a “risk-based culture”.
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