Letter to the Prime Minister about comments from the Home Secretary

Comments in a communication from the home secretary are deeply concerning, says Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy, in a letter to the prime minister.

You can read the letter in full below:

Dear Prime Minister,

Communication from the Home Secretary

We are writing as a union representing tens of thousands of civil servants to register both our deep concern and demand that you take action with regard to a communication from the Home Secretary. This email, which has been widely circulated on social media, accuses civil servants of seeking to block the implementation of government policy. This is an extremely serious allegation that is completely without foundation.

As you will be aware, where a minister has genuine concerns then there are processes to be followed. We would have expected the minister to raise the issues with you, as head of the civil service or alternatively the Cabinet Secretary. None of this appears to have happened. Instead, we believe the minister has made these allegations to seek to achieve cheap party-political advantage.

The Ministerial Code is clear that ministers have a responsibility to “uphold the political impartiality” of the civil service. Blaming civil servants in this way, without foundation and without following due process is we believe a breach of the Ministerial Code and playing politics with those dedicated to serving the government of the day and is completely unacceptable.

We had hoped that under your premiership the era of on and off the record briefings against civil servants had come to an end. This is clearly not the case, and this is a particularly egregious example. Civil servants will be looking to you and the Cabinet Secretary to take decisive action regarding this matter, to ensure there is a retraction and an apology given and put in place arrangements to ensure there is no repetition. Given the public interest in this matter we will be releasing this letter publicly.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Clancy
General Secretary, Prospect