The prime minister has been urged to launch a crackdown on warring camps within Downing Street after opponents of his chief of staff, Sue Gray, leaked her salary details.
Keir Starmer's responses to questions about his authority and Gray's earnings featured prominently on news bulletins yesterday, prompting Institute for Government programme director Alex Thomas to stress the need for Starmer to "stamp out" factionalism and impose order.
Stories of discontent within the upper echelons of government over former Cabinet Office second permanent secretary Gray's power and influence have been a regular feature of news diaries in recent weeks, particularly during parliament's summer recess.
This week it emerged that Gray's current salary is £170,000 – £3,000 a year more than that of the prime minister. The information came in a leak to the BBC, said by political editor Chris Mason to have been motivated by "a deep sense of anger" about the level of Gray's remuneration, her influence and pay levels for others in government.
Earlier this month CSW reported that newly-appointed special advisers had raised concerns about being paid less than the previous government's spads – and less than their salaries had been when they were Labour Party officials.
Conversely, Gray's remuneration is £20,000 a year higher than Rishi Sunak's former chief of staff, Liam Booth-Smith. Gray's last role in government saw her based at the then-Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Its annual report and accounts for 2022-23 showed her pay was bracketed at £150,000-£155,000, exclusive of pension benefits.
The IfG's Thomas said yesterday that there was a leadership "hiatus" at the top of the civil service, with cabinet secretary Simon Case, national security adviser Sir Tim Barrow, and Starmer's principal private secretary Elizabeth Perelman all due to be replaced soon.
"The three senior civil servants who should be closest to the prime minister and helping him run the government are in limbo," Thomas said. "Case is expected to be gone by the start of next year. National security adviser Tim Barrow was replaced, then un-replaced, and is now waiting to see what happens next. The same thing seemingly happened to Starmer’s principal private secretary Elizabeth Perelman. And they are all trying to operate in a convoluted institutional structure, with a Cabinet Office in need of reform."
Sunak announced in April that Barrow was being replaced by Gen Gwyn Jenkins, and was rumoured to be top pick to become British ambassador to Washington DC later this year. That plan was ditched following Labour's general-election victory in July. Last month it was reported that a new appointment process is being run for the next NSA while a decision on the ambassador role will be delayed until the result of November's US presidential election is known.
Thomas said it was "not surprising" that parts of government "appeared to be juddering" and that ministers and officials were struggling to keep on top of "frothy" briefings about Gray.
"The prime minister needs a strong and united top team to give him the best advice, and to get on top of problematic stories before they cause trouble," he said.
"Starmer must impose his authority on rival Downing Street camps, and rapidly sort out the hiatus at the top of the civil service."
Yesterday Starmer faced a gruelling round of more than 20 one-to-one interviews with local media journalists in Downing Street and was asked about the Gray briefings and his own grip on the government machine.
In response to questions from the BBC, he flatly refused to discuss Gray's remuneration package but insisted he had not lost authority in Downing Street.
"I’m completely in control," he said. "I’m focused and every day the message from me to the team is exactly the same, which is 'we have to deliver'. We were elected on a big mandate to deliver change, I am determined that we are going to do that."
Earlier in the day, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told BBC Breakfast that leaks such as those about Gray's pay were "annoying" and "a permanent frustration". He said Starmer would not have had any input into pay levels for the government's advisers.
"There’s a process that exists, it’s a civil service process, it hasn’t changed. It’s wrong to say there’s any kind of political input in there or people set their own pay bands," he said.
"I don’t even get to set the pay for my own advisers... I think there are and always have been officials who are paid more than politicians in our system and that hasn’t changed."
An unnamed cabinet minister quoted in the i newspaper said the current round of attacks would not faze the PM's chief of staff.
"Sue has done an enormous job preparing Labour for government, and is now showing her customary drive to get Whitehall to deliver on Labour’s priorities," they said. "She won’t be distracted, she will carry on doing what she always does, focus on delivering the change that the British people voted for."
Former Labour Party deputy leader Baroness Harriet Harman previously told BBC Two's Newsnight programme she suspected briefings against Sue Gray had links to gender and age-related prejudice.
"There is something about an older woman in authority that some young men find hard to put up with," she said. "For them to be moaning about their pay and trying to show her in a bad light when she’s really an exceptional and talented public servant, I think that’s a thoroughly bad thing."