Antonia Romeo pledges to ‘rewire’ civil service by incentivising and rewarding top performers
Whitehall is too “tame, reactive and risk-averse”, the cabinet secretary has said, as she set out a “completely new approach” to managing the performance of civil servants.
With Andy Burnham and his deputy, Louise Haigh, in the audience, the UK’s most senior civil servant, Antonia Romeo, gave a lecture saying she would bring radical change to Whitehall as it deals with uncertainty caused by AI and global political tensions.
She said fundamental reform of the civil service to improve productivity was essential given the “tight fiscal context”. Ministers are grappling with how to deliver higher defence spending in future while protecting the budgets of public services.
Romeo’s statement that she would “rewire” the civil service echoed pledges under Keir Starmer’s government.
But recent changes to increase bonuses for high performing senior civil servants were “just the start”, she said.
Romeo said her new approach to managing performance in Whitehall would “incentivise and reward brilliant delivery, valuable expertise and sticking it out to get the job done”.
“Poor performance drives out good performance and discretionary effort, and we must urgently address that,” she said, speaking at the London School of Economics.
“We will strengthen processes and train and equip managers to reward those making the biggest impact, and…
