Will Wormald actually help Starmer change the civil service?

Downing Street has announced that the 14th secretary to the cabinet and head of the civil service will be Sir Chris Wormald. He will succeed Simon Case when the latter stands down after four years on 16 December. Wormald, 56, has been permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care for eight and a half years, before which he was the top official at the Department for Education for four years – a true Whitehall veteran.

There is no doubt that Wormald is experienced. He is likeable and highly rated, though his department has hardly stood out for excellence over the past decade and he sometimes struggled under questioning at the Covid-19 inquiry. But Keir Starmer has spoken of the need for ‘the complete rewiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform’. Is Wormald the man to help him deliver that?

Case’s departure had been inevitable since before the government came to power in July.