The cabinet secretary told the committee that the PM and DPM are “very conscious” of the effects of such attacks on civil service morale, “and I think they’re just as frustrated and angry as myself and [head of the civil service] Sir Bob Kerslake.”
Heywood was asked about the suggestion in the Daily Telegraph that the government is considering cutting the civil service by 90 per cent. “It’s not the policy of the prime minister or anyone else in Number 10,” he said.
One committee member, Kelvin Hopkins MP, asked whether Heywood is angry at the press, or at one of the prime minister’s special advisers, Steve Hilton, who Hopkins alleged had briefed the Telegraph.
Heywood responded: “I don’t know whether it’s definitely come from Steve Hilton but whatever it is, wherever it’s come from, it isn’t the policy of the government and that’s enough to be said about it, frankly.”
The cabinet secretary admitted that some government ministers are frustrated by the civil service and the slow pace of change, and argued that it is up to civil servants to “prove our dedication and competence [and] that we are supporting the elected government of the day”
Heywood also defended his advice to the PM that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt should appear at the Leveson Inquiry rather than face the adviser on ministerial standards Sir Alex Allan, saying: “I genuinely felt that the Lord Justice Leveson would have been the right and most rigorous and searching investigation”.