Your guide to the department's cast of ministerial characters, and what’s in their in-trays
In, out, shake it all about. When a new administration comes along, the Cabinet Office often gets new responsibilities and loses others. This time around was no different.
Since Labour came to power, the Cabinet Office has lost responsibility for the Government Digital Service, Central Digital and Data Office and Incubator for AI (all moving to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (moving to the Ministry of Defence).
On the other hand, it has regained responsibility for the UK’s relationship with the European Union (previously held by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office); taken over the Government Car Service (previously at the transport department); and become home to a new a child poverty unit.
The prime minister is, in theory, the most senior minister in the Cabinet Office, but in practice, it is led by the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Pat McFadden, who has bundles of government experience, was appointed to this role.
McFadden spent more than a decade working for Tony Blair, first as an adviser – from 1994 to 2002 – and then as the prime minister’s political secretary. After becoming an MP in 2005, he was appointed as a Cabinet Office junior minister in 2006. The following year he became a minister in the business department, where he stayed until Labour was ousted from power in 2010. He has since held a series of shadow frontbench roles, including most recently shadowing the Duchy of Lancaster role.
McFadden is responsible for missions; oversight of all Cabinet Office policy; national security, resilience and civil contingencies; propriety and ethics; public appointments; and major events policy.
A few days into his job, McFadden used a speech at a conference run by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change to set out how ministers’ relations with civil servants would change under Labour. He accused the previous government of “going around beating the civil service up” and said being a civil servant would become “a richer, more rewarding experience, rather than being blamed for the failures of ministers”.
McFadden has also since promised trade unions that “the days of government ministers waging culture wars on civil servants are over”.
“McFadden promised civil servants ‘a richer, more rewarding experience, rather than being blamed for the failures of ministers’”
In mid-July, McFadden announced a review of national resilience in the wake of the Covid Inquiry’s first report. He will chair a cabinet committee on resilience to oversee the review and will work with devolved governments, regional mayors and local leaders to develop it.
Also in the department’s team are minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds, who is responsible for the returned EU relations brief, and Ellie Reeves, who is minister without portfolio and attends cabinet.
Thomas-Symonds has been a continuous opposition frontbencher since being elected in 2015, serving under the leadership of both Jeremy Corbyn and Starmer.
Alongside his EU assignment, Thomas-Symonds is the paymaster general and is responsible for the constitution and House of Lords reform; legislation; inquiries policy and the government response to the Infected Blood Inquiry.
Reeves, who is the sister of chancellor Rachel Reeves and the wife of former Labour MP John Cryer, is responsible for missions and the GREAT campaign. She is also the new chair of the Labour Party.
They are joined by junior ministers Georgia Gould and Abena Oppong-Asare.
Gould is responsible for public sector reform; oversight of government functions; Cabinet Office business planning and performance; public bodies policy; and Cabinet Office arm’s-length body sponsorship.
A former leader of Camden Council, Gould has been nicknamed the Red Princess – her father was a strategy and polling consultant to the Labour party for five elections, while her mother has been a Labour peer since 2014, and Gould made her first media appearance as a baby being held aloft by Neil Kinnock on the cover of Private Eye.
As well as this political pedigree, Gould brings experience of mission-driven government to the department: at Camden Council, she introduced four missions and a new cross-departmental way of working in 2022, working closely with UCL professor and maven of missions Mariana Mazzucato.
Oppong-Asare, also a former Labour councillor as well as a former member of the London Assembly, has responsibility for national security, resilience, and civil contingencies; transparency policy, correspondence policy and Freedom of Information; and supporting the minister for the Cabinet Office on inquiries policy and constitution.
During her time as an assembly member, Oppong-Asare led the community engagement work for the mayor in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire. She is also chair of Labour Women’s Network and co-author of Stand up and be Counted, a book offering practical advice for women from diverse backgrounds to stand for council.
The Cabinet Office was busy in the weeks following the election finalising pay deals for the civil service after the previous Conservative government had delayed making a decision. Ministers published the delegated pay remit for 2024-25 for non-senior officials and guidance on pay for the senior civil service, which both gave officials a 5% pay increase, the day before parliament broke up for summer recess.
On flexible working, another key issue that the department is responsible for, ministers are taking things more slowly. Gould said in early August that ministers were “yet to review” home-working guidance, adding that the government was “committed to supporting individuals and businesses to work in ways that best suit their particular circumstances”.
Read up on ministers in other departments here