No evidence ‘activist’ civil servants tried to thwart Raab, former leading mandarin says

‘The issue is (Raab’s) behaviour’, Lord McDonald says

Dominic Raab is wrong to claim “activist” civil servants are trying to thwart ministers, a former leading mandarin has warned.

Mr Raab was forced to resign as deputy prime minister after a report found he had acted in an intimidating and aggressive way towards officials.

But as he left he issued a parting shot at the inquiry itself and officials who he said had a “passive aggressive culture” towards policies like Brexit.

Lord McDonald, a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, had to warn Mr Raab over his behaviour when he was in office.

He told the BBC’s Today Programme he had seen no evidence to back up Mr Raab's accusation that "activist" civil servants were working against his ministerial agenda.

He said: "I disagree strongly with Mr Raab.

"I think all the civil servants I saw working for Dominic Raab worked very hard for him in the way they are required to do.

"There is no Civil Service activism, there is no Civil Service passive aggression, there is no separate Civil Service agenda.

"And another key point is that serving civil servants cannot defend themselves in public, so no serving civil servant is now going to come forward and offer an alternative account because that is not allowed.

"As a retired civil servant, I can make part of the case but I was not there when these cases arose - my knowledge is imperfect - but I think it is important that the ethos, the handwork of civil servants, should be defended.

"I saw no evidence of a small group of activists trying to undermine a minister. The issue is a minister's behaviour."

The official investigation into allegations of bullying concluded that Mr Raab had engaged in an "abuse or misuse of power" that "undermines or humiliates" while he was foreign secretary.

His conduct in the department had a "significant adverse effect" on one colleague, it found.

He was also found to have been "intimidating" to staff by criticising "utterly useless" and "woeful" work while he was justice secretary.

The prime minister has been urged to intervene to protect the reputation of the civil service.

The general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said Mr Raab had set a "dangerous" precedent by accusing civil servants of acting on political grounds.

Dave Penman told Times Radio the allegations were “spurious”.

"This is where we start to get into quite dangerous territory and really the Prime Minister should be starting to intervene, because what Raab's now doing is he's saying: 'this wasn't just about me, this was a politically motivated group of civil servants trying to block Government policy'.

"Of course he provides no evidence to support that whatsoever in his desperate attempt to defend himself."

Mr Penman accused ministers more generally of trying to "create a culture war of a 'woke left civil service' without any evidence".

The service had "both hands tied behind its back, unable to defend itself" because of impartiality rules, he said.

He also called on Mr Sunak to "conduct a review of the entire process" of civil servants reporting their concerns about ministers.