Once, the Civil Service was viewed as the omniscient, omnipotent embodiment of the Establishment: a mandarin class par excellence. Sir Humphrey Appleby and his real-life equivalents could run rings round their ministers, rule their Whitehall dominions unencumbered and command fear and respect from their underlings.
Those halcyon days now seem like a distant memory. In the twentieth-first century, the civil service increasingly seems unable to even perform its essential duties properly: less Rolls-Royce and more Reliant Robin. Poorly-managed public projects from the Ajax tanks to NHS supercomputer have wasted billions, while the likes of Sir Philip Barton and Sir Matthew Rycroft have produced countless gaffe-filled select committee appearances.
Such blunders are perhaps encapsulated in the form of Simon Case, Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service. Since being appointed to these roles in September 2020 he has been engulfed in a near-constant succession of crises and scandals. Greybeards in Whitehall shake their heads in bemusement. Where, they wonder, is the fleetness of foot that his predecessors demonstrated? He was, after all, the youngest Cabinet Secretary at the time of appointment since 1916 – and one of the least experienced too. Not for nothing did today’s Times note:
Mr Sunak needs a Cabinet Secretary with the authority to ensure that standards are maintained throughout Whitehall. He should ask himself whether Mr Case – who was recruited to the job by Mr Johnson’s former adviser, Dominic Cummings, despite lacking the expected credentials, and who was present at all the debacles of the Johnson and Truss regimes, and had to recuse himself from the inquiry into lockdown parties in Downing Street – is really capable of providing the robust advice he needs.
His supporters will argue that many of these crises are not of his own making: it was not Case’s fault that he served under Boris Johnson, arguably the most scandal-riddled premier since Lloyd George. Still, it is surely telling that, time and again, it is Cases’s name which is splashed heavily across various newspapers at the centre of controversy. No wonder some civil servants are now muttering about his future – with some even foolhardy enough to make such concerns public.
So, for the enjoyment of his readers, here is Steerpike’s guide to five scandals involving Simon Case…
Loangate – December 2020
This row only came to light in recent weeks but concerns events from Case’s early months in the role. Back then, former Goldman banker Richard Sharp was involved in securing a loan of up to £800,000 for the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, prior to Sharp being named BBC chairman. Case appears to have been involved in facilitating and clearing this loan then deciding that it could be kept secret. Unsurprisingly, those close to Johnson are keen to suggest that Case is the ‘lynchpin’ of this story. After all, they argue, if the loan was such a scandal then why did Case go along with it?
Wallpapergate– April 2021
The first real criticism of Case came during the row over who paid for Johnson’s Downing Street flat renovations. He was accused of trying to ‘smooth over the cracks’ by overseeing the fallout from the refurbishment, with Labour frontbenchers even moved to comment on how ‘strange and misplaced’ it was ‘for the Prime Minister to have tasked someone as senior as the Cabinet Secretary with a job like this in the midst of a pandemic.’ The matter was subsequently handed over to Lord Geidt but Case subsequently produced an underwhelming display before the Public Administration Committee in which he was criticised for a lack of preparation and information on the subject.
Partygate – December 2021
Probably the most controversial row of them all. After reports of more than a dozen Whitehall parties during lockdown, Case was appointed in December 2021 by Johnson to lead an investigation – only to then step down after it emerged that gatherings had been held in his office as well. Case never received a fine from the police for his attendance at a Christmas drinks event in December 2020 – nor an impromptu birthday celebration for Johnson in Downing Street, for which both Johnson and Rishi Sunak were fined. The decision of the police not to punish Case baffled many of his colleagues – as did his subsequent refusal to resign.
Zahawigate – September 2022
The Boris-BBC story is just one story concerning Case that is currently in the news. The other is about Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs. Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were reportedly kept in the dark about the former Chancellor’s settlement with HMRC, raising questions about why officials did not flag concerns at the time of Zahawi’s appointments in September and October 2022. As today’s Times notes ‘the failure to warn Truss or Sunak about Zahawi’s tax affairs has raised questions about the role payed by the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, who has overall responsibility for advising the prime minister on ethical issues.’ Sunak has already made it clear that he had no idea when he appointed Zahawi that he had been made to pay a fine to HMRC. Will he hold Case responsible?
Scholargate – September 2022
Perhaps the most straightforwardly ‘political’ row of this quintet. On their first day in office, the new Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng dismissed Tom Scholar, the Treasury’s well-respected Permanent Secretary, prompting outrage from his colleagues. Case was lacerated by many colleagues for his apparent acquiescence in Scholar’s sacking. Sir David Normington, former head of the Home Office, publicly accused him of ‘failing to stand up for the values of the Civil Service’ and said it ‘sent a clear message to the civil service that they are not interested in impartial advice and intend to surround themselves with “yes” men and women.’ Ouch.
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