Civil servants are being offered HR support as departments begin trawling hundreds of thousands of documents that make up the Mandelson Files. As Guido reported a large-scale cover-up is underway in the Cabinet Office…
Staff are mostly in the dark as to what is going on. A message was sent to all staff last week from Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Collins and top level officials Barbara Woodward, Michael Ellam and Steve Field:
“Many of you will have seen the debate in the House on Wednesday, and the subsequent media coverage, that the government has agreed to disclose information relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment and communications between him, Ministers, officials and Special Advisers, while he was Ambassador. The Cabinet Secretary is leading a process and we are discussing our approach in NSS and EGIS, on which we will write more next week.”
Cabinet Office staff are still waiting for a more substantial update. Guido hears the files are the talk of the town in the FCDO and Cabinet Office – the two departments dealing with the files…
Guido hears both departments have deployed employee support mechanisms on offer to staff throughout the process. Presumably in case those emails are traumatic…
Chris Wormald – the Cabinet Secretary – is about to be relieved of his job. The Times reports that he will be replaced by Home Office permanent secretary Antonia Romeo. Across Whitehall permanent secretaries she is a marmite figure whom some some love and some hate – and is additionally seen as not a low risk option. Either way the release of the Mandelson Files will be disrupted by changing personnel at the top…
Starmer was read out a list of his 13 U-turns on BBC Radio 2, to which he responded:
“Well, I am a common sense merchant.”