Whitehall is too ‘tame, reactive and risk-averse’, says UK’s top civil servant

Antonia Romeo pledges to ‘rewire’ civil service by incentivising and rewarding top performers

Whitehall is too “tame, reactive and risk-averse”, the cabinet secretary has said, as she set out a “completely new approach” to managing the performance of civil servants.

With Andy Burnham and his deputy, Louise Haigh, in the audience, the UK’s most senior civil servant, Antonia Romeo, gave a lecture saying she would bring radical change to Whitehall as it deals with uncertainty caused by AI and global political tensions.

She said fundamental reform of the civil service to improve productivity was essential given the “tight fiscal context”. Ministers are grappling with how to deliver higher defence spending in future while protecting the budgets of public services.