Simon Case, cabinet secretary and head of the civil service since 2020, is a man in the news. Unusually for a top civil servant, he is at the centre of two scandals simultaneously: Zahawi’s tax affairs, and the story of Boris Johnson’s £800,000 private and undeclared “credit facility”. The behaviour of our top civil servant will be under intense scrutiny in the coming weeks.
What’s at stake?
Arguably, the careers of Rishi Sunak and Johnson – and of Case himself – as well as the reputation of the civil service. It has earned its esteem as impartial, expert, honest, reliable, a bulwark against illegality and corruption and, above all, independent.
