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The new UK government is facing questions over its handling of appointments after it emerged that a second person connected to donations made to the Labour party had been handed a senior role in the civil service.
Former consultant Emily Middleton has been named a director-general in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after she was seconded to the Labour party while it was in opposition.
It emerged this week that the firm of which she was a partner, Public Digital, had offered secondments worth more than £65,000 to the team of Peter Kyle, the shadow technology secretary at the time. These types of secondments are registered as donations by the electoral commission.
Earlier this month it emerged that Ian Corfield, a man who made political donations to Labour’s new chancellor Rachel Reeves, had been made a director in the Treasury.
The alleged connection between individuals who have donated to the party and senior appointments to high-ranking civil service roles has led some to question Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s commitment to strengthening the ethics regime in government.
Starmer vowed to rid government of cronyism following a series of sleaze scandals that engulfed successive Conservative administrations.
Shadow science minister Andrew Griffith said that “something extremely odd” was going on with the “growing scandal” of people linked with donations being appointed to top civil service jobs.
Former Tory adviser Henry Newman, who revealed the donations made by Public Digital on the platform Substack, wrote on Thursday that the civil service needed to “urgently clarify” whether it was made aware that Middleton’s company had donated to Kyle’s team prior to her appointment.
“It seems inconceivable that as a partner [of Public Digital] Middleton wouldn’t have been involved in the decision to make herself a secondee, and therefore the ‘donation’,” he wrote on X.
Former financial services executive Corfield — who has donated more than £20,000 to senior Labour figures in the past decade, including a £5,000 contribution to Reeves last summer — was appointed as a director in the Treasury earlier this month.
The Civil Service Commission, which approves appointments, said at the time it had no knowledge of donations made by Corfield when it reviewed the decision to appoint him.
“The commission’s recruitment principles are silent on the use of the exceptions process to appoint politically aligned candidates, as well as on the involvement of ministers in exceptional appointments,” said Jack Worlidge, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government think-tank.
“During the election campaign Labour repeatedly emphasised its credentials around propriety and ethics,” he added. “It will be interesting to see if the new Ethics and Integrity Commission closes some of these gaps.”
A government spokesperson said: “While we do not routinely comment on individual staffing appointments, this role was appointed in line with the civil service rules on recruitment.”
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