(Bloomberg) -- Simon Case, the head of the UK’s civil service under three Conservative prime ministers, said he is standing down on health grounds, allowing Labour premier Keir Starmer to choose his own top official.
Case, 45, said in an email to staff seen by Bloomberg that he would leave his post as cabinet secretary at the end of the year. “I have been undergoing medical treatment for a neurological condition over the last 18 months and, whilst the spirit remains willing, the body does not,” he wrote.
He said his departure was unrelated to reports about unrest at the top of Starmer’s Downing Street operation. He has previously denied briefing negatively about the premier’s chief of staff, Sue Gray.
“It is a shame that I feel I have to spell this out, but my decision is solely to do with my health and nothing to do with anything else,” Case wrote.
Case was widely perceived to have been too closely involved in the political dealings of past Tory administrations. Appointed by Johnson in Sept. 2022, he took a prominent role in the government’s response to the pandemic, a period which included the so-called Partygate scandal over rule-breaking in Downing Street. In testimony to the official Covid inquiry, Case apologized for the tone of his communications about other members of Johnson’s top team.
In his email, Case urged his colleagues to maintain their political neutrality. “We should resist the temptation to become arbiters of, or participants in, legitimate democratic debate, leaving party politics to politicians and demonstrating our enduring and profound belief in democracy through the service of the elected government of the day,” he wrote.
Case previously served in the royal household as private secretary to Prince William.
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