The Cabinet Secretary is the most senior

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, and is based in the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government object ...

. The person in this role acts as the senior policy adviser to the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

and

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...

and as the Secretary to the Cabinet, is responsible to all ministers for the efficient running of government. The role is currently occupied by

Simon Case Simon Case (born 27 December 1978) is a British civil servant who is the current Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service since 9 September 2020, succeeding Sir Mark Sedwill. Case was Downing Street Permanent Secretary to Prim ...

Origin

The position of Cabinet Secretary was created in 1916 for Sir Maurice Hankey, when the existing secretariat of the

Committee of Imperial Defence The Committee of Imperial Defence was an important ''ad hoc'' part of the Government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire from just after the Second Boer War until the start of the Second World War. It was responsible for research, and som ...

, headed by Hankey, became secretariat to a newly organised

War Cabinet A war cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war to efficiently and effectively conduct that war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers, although it is quite common for a war cabinet to have senio ...

Responsibilities

Civil Service

Since 1981 (except for a period 2011–2014), the position of cabinet secretary has been combined with the role of

Head of the Home Civil Service His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, whic ...

. The cabinet secretary used to also hold the position of the permanent secretary of the

, but this has been passed to the chief executive of the civil service. The first means that the cabinet secretary is responsible for all the civil servants of the various departments within government (except the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

), chairing the Permanent Secretaries Management Group (PSMG) which is the principal governing body of the civil service. The second means that the cabinet secretary is responsible for leading the government department that provides administrative support to the prime minister and Cabinet. The post is appointed by the prime minister with the advice of the out-going cabinet secretary and the First Civil Service Commissioner.

Cabinet

The responsibilities of the job vary from time to time and depend very much on the personal qualities of both the prime minister and cabinet secretary of the day. In most cases the true influence of the cabinet secretary extends far beyond administrative matters, and reaches to the very heart of the decision-making process. For instance, the cabinet secretary is responsible for administering the

Ministerial Code The Ministerial Code is a document setting out "rules" and standards for government ministers in the United Kingdom. Separate codes exist for ministers of the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Executive (based on the St Andrews Agreemen ...

which governs the conduct of ministers (also known as ''the Rule Book'' and formerly ''Questions of Procedure for Ministers''). In this duty the cabinet secretary may be asked to investigate leaks within government, and enforce Cabinet discipline. Unusually in a democracy, this gives the unelected cabinet secretary some authority over elected ministers (a situation satirised in the BBC

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

Yes, Prime Minister ''Yes Minister'' is a British political satire sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Comprising three seven-episode series, it was first transmitted on BBC2 from 1980 to 1984. A sequel, ''Yes, Prime Minister'', ran for 16 episodes fro ...

''), although the constitutional authority of the code is somewhat ambiguous.

Intelligence

The cabinet secretary is responsible for overseeing the intelligence services and their relationship to the government, though since 2002 this responsibility has been delegated to a full-time role (initially as

Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator The Intelligence Co-ordinator, later Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator was a senior post in the Cabinet Office of the British Civil Service that oversaw the Intelligence agency, intelligence services and their relationship to the UK government ...

, now the Head of Intelligence, Security & Resilience working to the National Security Adviser), with the cabinet secretary focussing on civil service reforms to help deliver the government's policy programme.

2011 restructuring

It was announced on 11 October 2011 that

Gus O'Donnell Augustine Thomas O'Donnell, Baron O'Donnell, (born 1 October 1952) is a former British senior civil servant and economist, who between 2005 and 2011 (under three Prime Ministers) served as the Cabinet Secretary, the highest official in the Bri ...

would retire at the end of 2011, and following this the three roles then performed by the cabinet secretary would be split: the cabinet secretary would provide policy advice to the prime minister and Cabinet; the Head of the Civil Service would provide leadership for the whole civil service; and the

permanent secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior civil servant of a department or ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are the non-political civil ...

would oversee the Cabinet Office. It was announced later that the officeholders would be Jeremy Heywood as cabinet secretary,

Bob Kerslake Robert Walter Kerslake, Baron Kerslake, (born 28 February 1955) is a British retired senior civil servant. He was the Head of the Home Civil Service, after the retirement of the former holder, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell on 31 Dece ...

as Head of the Civil Service, and

Ian Watmore Ian Charles Watmore (born 5 July 1958) is a British management consultant and former senior civil servant under three prime ministers, serving from October 2016 as the First Civil Service Commissioner. Early life and business career Born in C ...

as permanent secretary at the

. In July 2014 it was announced that Kerslake would step down and Heywood would take the title of head of the Civil Service with a chief executive of the Civil Service reporting to Heywood and holding Watmore's post at the Cabinet Office. Heywood's retirement on health grounds was announced on 24 October 2018, and he was replaced by

Mark Sedwill Mark Philip Sedwill, Baron Sedwill, (born 21 October 1964) is a British diplomat and senior civil servant who served as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service to Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson from 2018 to 2020. H ...

List of cabinet secretaries

Timeline of cabinet secretaries

ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:12 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:100 right:130 left:20 AlignBars = late DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1915 till:2021 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1915 Colors = id:former value:rgb(0.5,0.5,0.5) legend: Former id:current value:rgb(1,0.25,0.25) legend: Current Legend = columns:2 left:150 top:50 columnwidth:100 TextData = pos:(20,55) textcolor:black fontsize:M text:"Tenure:" BarData = bar:Hankey bar:Bridges bar:Brook bar:Trend bar:Hunt bar:Armstrong bar:Butler bar:Wilson bar:Turnbull bar:ODonnell bar:Heywood bar:Sedwill bar:Case PlotData= width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift:(5,-4) anchor:till bar:Hankey from: 1916 till: 1938 color:former text:" Maurice Hankey" bar:Bridges from: 1938 till: 1947 color:former text:" Edward Bridges" bar:Brook from: 1947 till: 1963 color:former text:"

Norman Brook Norman Craven Brook, 1st Baron Normanbrook, (29 April 1902 – 15 June 1967), known as Sir Norman Brook between 1946 and 1964, was a British civil servant. He was Cabinet Secretary between 1947 and 1962 as well as joint permanent secretary to H ...

" bar:Trend from: 1963 till: 1973 color:former text:" Burke Trend" bar:Hunt from: 1973 till: 1979 color:former text:" John Hunt" bar:Armstrong from: 1979 till: 1988 color:former text:" Robert Armstrong" bar:Butler from: 1988 till: 1998 color:former text:"

Robin Butler Frederick Edward Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, (born 3 January 1938) is a retired British civil servant, now sitting in the House of Lords as a crossbencher. Early life and family Butler was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, on ...

" bar:Wilson from: 1998 till: 2002 color:former text:" Richard Wilson" bar:Turnbull from: 2002 till: 2005 color:former text:" Andrew Turnbull" bar:ODonnell from: 2005 till: 2012 color:former text:"

" bar:Heywood from: 2012 till: 2018 color:former text:" Jeremy Heywood" bar:Sedwill from: 2018 till: 2020 color:former text:"

" bar:Case from: 2020 till: 2021 color:current text:"

References

External links

Cabinet Office
{{Cabinet Office Cabinet Office (United Kingdom) Civil service positions in the United Kingdom 1916 introductions 1916 establishments in the United Kingdom