The Home Office official in charge of tackling small-boat arrivals to the UK has resigned.
Stuart Skeates, who has been director general for strategic operations at the department since 2023, announced his resignation via two mass emails to staff last week, the i reported.
The first email said Skeates would step down “immediately”. However, he is now expected to stay in post to oversee the setting up of Labour’s new Border Security Command, according to the newspaper.
A former lieutenant general in the Army, Skeates joined the Home Office in 2022 after a stint in the Cabinet Office.
As director general, he was responsible for leading operations required to implement the Conservative government’s flagship Illegal Migration Act. He also worked with other DGs to coordinate operational work on irregular migration.
He is also a member of the Home Office Executive Committee.
One civil servant told the newspaper that said staff had been "taken by surprise" by news of the "sudden" resignation.
"Many thought Stuart would be the new small boats commander," they said.
The Home Office opened recruitment for an “exceptional leader” for its Border Security Command last week.
Setting up the Border Security Command was a key plank of Labour’s manifesto and its pledge to “smash the criminal smuggling gangs making millions out of small boat crossings”.
The successful candidate for the £200,000-a-year-role is expected to have “senior-level experience of delivering through a large and geographically dispersed workforce, which spans several disciplines and specialisms” and to demonstrate “resilience in managing competing pressures, pace, uncertainty, resistance, complexity and competing interests”.
Their responsibilities will include “providing strategic direction and performance management of the system; developing policy; deploying funding and other levers to drive improvements in border security; and addressing organised immigration crime", according to the job advert.
Neil Basu, the former head of UK counter-terrorism policing, was named in several reports as the frontrunner for the position, but has ruled himself out.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Stuart Skeates is leaving his position of director general of strategic operations. This is a personal choice, and follows 35 years of distinguished public service in the civil service and military.
“The Home Office wishes him well for the future and is grateful for his outstanding contribution.”