Top civil servant says 'Sue Gray may have broken impartiality rules'

Top civil servant ‘voices concerns Sue Gray may have broken impartiality rules by holding secret meetings with Sir Keir Starmer’

• Susan Acland-Hood raised her concerns in an online Zoom call with colleagues
• The top civil servant also reminded other officials about their duty to impartiality

A top civil servant has privately raised concerns that Sue Gray broke impartiality rules by holding secret meetings with Sir Keir Starmer, it was claimed yesterday.

Susan Acland-Hood, permanent secretary at the Department of Education, is said to have raised concerns in an online Zoom call with colleagues.

The Telegraph reported that as she reminded other officials about their duty to impartiality, she said that Sue Gray becoming Sir Keir’s chief of staff ‘is a real challenge to acting in a way that deserves and retains the confidence of ministers’.

The role of permanent secretary is the most senior civil servant in a government department.

Ms Acland-Hood reportedly went through the Civil Service’s code on impartiality line by line, telling colleagues: ‘People who are saying there is a difficulty with this appointment because if Sue has ever held Labour Party-like political beliefs in her career she can’t have been a proper civil servant, don’t get that what the Civil Service code requires is not that we don’t have any political beliefs, but that we don’t allow our political beliefs to influence the way we do our jobs.

A top civil servant has privately raised concerns that Sue Gray (pictuted) broke impartiality rules by holding secret meetings with Sir Keir Starmer, it was claimed yesterday

Susan Acland-Hood (pictured), permanent secretary at the Department of Education, is said to have raised concerns in an online Zoom call with colleagues

‘The next bit is the bit where I think some people are right to think there is a difficulty about this appointment.

‘So you have to act in a way that deserves and retains the confidence of ministers while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those who you may be required to serve in some future government.

‘All I will say is I think that there is a real challenge to acting in a way that deserves and retains the confidence of ministers for someone so senior to go so quickly to a position in this way.

‘I don’t really understand how this can possibly have happened without there being contact in advance which you shouldn’t be having without reporting it.’ 

Ms Acland-Hood concluded with a firm warning that ‘if anybody receives contact from the Leader of the Opposition or a member of the Shadow Cabinet you should tell your permanent secretary right away.’

Ms Gray is facing questions about whether she met this requirement under the civil service’s code of conduct.

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