Keir Starmer's sacking of top civil servant cost taxpayers £500,000 in record payout

By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Published: 10:30, 18 August 2026 | Updated: 10:30, 18 August 2026 Keir Starmer's decision to sack the top civil servant he hired only 14 months earlier cost taxpayers £500,000, it has emerged. Chris Wormald was forced out as Cabinet Secretary by Sir Keir in February as the then-prime minister rebuilt his No10 team in a desperate bid to save his premiership. Sir Chris's departure made him the shortest-serving Cabinet Secretary in British history and left taxpayers having to pick up the bill for a hefty payout. It had initially been suggested that Sir Chris had been handed a £260,000 payout as part of an exit package. But several people briefed on the settlement have now told the Financial Times it topped £500,000, which would make it a record payout. The severance payment had to be personally signed off by Sir Keir after Cat Little, the top official at the Cabinet Office, said she needed a 'ministerial direction' on the sum. 'The proposed award is greater than what Sir Chris Wormald would be contractually entitled to,' she said in a letter to Sir Keir in February. 'However, I am informed that a settlement of this level is necessary given that this is a departure from a high profile, unique role that has been agreed at very short notice.' Chris Wormald was forced out as Cabinet Secretary by Keir Starmer in February as the then-prime minister rebuilt his No10 team in a desperate bid to save his premiership The severance payment had to be personally signed off by Sir Keir after Cat Little, the top official at the Cabinet Office, said she needed a 'ministerial direction' on the sum Ms Little added that Sir Keir's sign-off was needed on 'propriety and value for money grounds'. Sir Chris was appointed as Cabinet Secretary in December 2024 with Sir Keir hailing him as the right man to 'rewire the British state'. But he departed the role as part of Sir Keir's 'reset' of his Downing Street operation at the beginning of this year amid the damaging Peter Mandelson scandal. One Government figure confirmed Sir Chris's payout of around £500,000, telling the newspaper: 'It shows why they needed the PM to sign it off. People were pretty shocked to find out. 'He was the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in history, so it makes sense he wanted a lot if he was to leave with that pretty damning statistic.' Sir Chris was replaced as Cabinet Secretary by Antonia Romeo, who was formerly the top civil servant at the Home Office. The full details of severance payments for senior officials will be included in the Cabinet Office annual report and accounts, which will be published later this year. A Cabinet Office spokesman: 'We don't comment on individual HR matters.'