Sir Chris Wormald KCB
Biography
Sir Chris Wormald was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service in December 2024.
Before this he served as Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health (now Department of Health and Social Care). He has also served as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education.
Sir Chris joined the Civil Service in 1991 as a fast streamer at the (then) Department of Education and Science. He has worked in a range of posts on education policy, including spells as Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State, as well as at the Department for Communities and Local Government (now Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government) as Director General for Local Government and Regeneration. He has also previously held roles in the Cabinet Office including as Director General of Public Service Reform, Head of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat and Director General in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office.
Cabinet Secretary
The Cabinet Secretary is the Prime Minister’s most senior policy adviser and acts as Secretary to the Cabinet, responsible to all ministers for the running of Cabinet Government.
Cabinet Office, Civil Service, Civil Service Reform, and Civil Service Board
Head of the Civil Service
The Head of the Civil Service leads nearly half a million public servants who work in public institutions, administer tax, benefits and pensions systems and put government policy into practice. The civil service is a permanent, politically impartial workforce that serves the government of the day, while retaining the flexibility to serve future governments.
Currently civil servants are supporting the government’s economic and public service reform. The scale of the challenges and persistent weaknesses require a reform plan that applies right across the civil service. The Head of the Civil Service is one of several senior civil servants accountable for the reform of the civil service through the Civil Service Board.