The former senior civil servant Sue Gray will take up her new role as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff even if the government’s appointments watchdog recommends a long delay to her start date, Labour has said. Labour insiders believe the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) will suggest that Gray should wait for a significantly shorter period than the maximum two years it could recommend for senior officials taking up a job outside government. There are also suggestions that Gray, who led the investigation into Partygate last year, could face restrictions on what she is allowed to do for Labour once in post rather than a delay. It could mean she is in place to help on transition arrangements for government, which typically take place between senior Whitehall officials and opposition parties about six months before a general election. Gray took the government by surprise with a plan to quit the civil service and become Starmer’s chief of staff this year, triggering an inquiry and an expectation that Acoba will place restrictions on when she can take up the role and what she can do. It comes as a report said Gray’s first discussions with Starmer – a date neither Labour nor Gray has commented on – was in October last year, long after her inquiry into Boris Johnson and Covid rule-breaking parties was completed, but while the Commons privileges committee was gathering evidence on the same subject. According to Sky News, Starmer initiated the contact, and she had “multiple” conversations afterwards with him and his team.
Starmer’s official spokesperson, asked on Wednesday whether Gray would be hired no matter how long her appointment is delayed, said: “Sue Gray is going to be Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.” There is not now an interim chief of staff in place, with Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign director, running the party’s operation before the next election. However, Labour sources have indicated that they could hire an interim figure to conduct negotiations with Whitehall so the party is ready for power should it win the election, if Acoba does recommend a long delay. Starmer has said he will abide by the committee’s findings. Labour is understood to be recruiting other current and former civil servants to key roles in the run-up to the next election. However, none of those are senior enough, and currently in post, to require them to go through the Acoba process. It emerged on Tuesday that Gray chose not to cooperate with the internal government process looking into her move, which allies have suggested was politically motivated and legally questionable. On Wednesday Downing Street said that Rishi Sunak thought this was “obviously disappointing”. However, Starmer’s spokesperson accused the Tories of trying to “politicise” the process by introducing an “additional political process [the Cabinet Office inquiry into the appointment] which is not part of the standard process” just before the local elections. “The Labour party is fully supporting the Acoba process, and the Acoba process is that Sue Gray submits her form with the information as requested of her by Acoba in the usual way,” the spokesperson said. He also said it was “bizarre that the government is choosing to spend its time discussing a former civil servant 48 hours before polling day rather than the issues that actually matter to voters”. It is understood that Gray is being represented in her discussions with the Cabinet Office by the FDA, the union for senior civil servants, with no direct Labour involvement. The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, described the internal inquiry as a “political gimmick” to pursue a “vendetta” against Gray. However, Sunak’s spokesperson denied that the internal inquiry – which ministers failed to publish on Tuesday despite widespread briefings that it had found that Gray had broken the code – was motivated by revenge. Asked whether Gray did advise the Cabinet Office on the privileges committee investigation into Boris Johnson, as has been claimed in some reports, the press secretary replied: “Not that I’m aware of.” She also declined to comment on reports that the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, banned ministers from putting out a fuller statement on Gray’s job move, after insiders said he “overreached” by initially allowing plans for the publication of the findings to go ahead. There is expected to be a further update from the Cabinet Office on the internal inquiry into Gray’s departure, although it is unclear whether this would take place before Acoba makes its recommendation. On Wednesday night the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, suggested Starmer was acting “shifty” over questions about when he first approached Gray to be his chief-of-staff. He told ITV’s Peston programme: “All Keir Starmer needs to do is cooperate, to say what the contacts were that he initiated. And I think it is unchivalrous and wrong of Keir Starmer not to fess up. “He should be straight, he shouldn’t be sort of ‘taking the Fifth’ and avoiding the question,” he added, referring to the US constitutional right against self-incrimination at trial. “It only reinforces the impression that people have that he is shifty and that he can’t be straight with us.”