Antonia Romeo

But we did see growing frustration on the political side and, and on the civil service side, ultimately, in, in their ability to sort of make that, um, relationship work.

What do you make of Andy Burnham's prospects of, of turning that around, of, of rebuilding that sort of sense of trust that we think is so important within government? We've heard, uh, just recently some slightly unclear reporting about Antonia Romeo being given, uh, powers, uh, to direct Perm Secs, but we don't really know what that means.

What's your, what's your take?

Yeah.

[coughs]

... tepid bath no longer, sort of question mark.

Um, uh, I think, uh, the fact that, uh, that Burnham has come in with energy and direction, and that has coincided more or less with a new cabinet secretary in Antonia Romeo, who also has energy and direction, is a, you know, a good coincidence of factors.

Uh, so, uh, you know, I and, uh, many people I talk to are feeling more optimistic now certainly than, uh, than we were a few months ago about that relationship and the ability of that relationship to, uh, kind of reform and, and forge itself.

I'm joined today by Tim Shipman and James Heal.

Now Tim, the headline of your piece in the magazine this week claims that Antonia Romeo, the Cabinet Secretary, is the most powerful woman in Britain.

Can you explain why?

Oh, she's the Cabinet Secretary, which is always an, an, uh, a powerful position, or it can be depending on the person who occupies the post.

And I think this is probably the first article I've written solely about a Cabinet Secretary since Jeremy Heywood was around, which is kind of significant.

Antonia Romeo has gone in there, she's grabbed herself a seat in the outer office outside the Prime Minister's study.

She has written her own job description, which has been signed off by two Prime Ministers, and it was reported earlier this week that she is also working on plans to give herself legal powers to overrule permanent secretaries in other government departments and sort of enshrine that in law.

I think everybody agrees that she's more significant, she's more in the loop.