The former Brexit negotiator Oliver Robbins is expected to be appointed as the UK Foreign Office’s most senior civil servant, the Guardian understands.
Robbins, who was on the shortlist last year to take over as cabinet secretary but failed to get the civil service’s top job, was believed to be David Lammy’s favoured candidate for the role.
The announcement of his appointment as the department’s permanent undersecretary, taking over from Sir Philip Barton, was expected to be imminent, sources said.
Although he left the civil service in 2019, Robbins has years of international affairs and national security experience, which will help him navigate a complex global landscape, with the return of Donald Trump to the White House and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
A Whitehall insider said: “Olly has a lot of experience – from Europe, to national security and economic security. He is one of the few people who will know how good the FCDO can be – and he will get it back to that.”
He will succeed Barton, who announced in November he was standing down after five years in the role, serving five foreign secretaries and overseeing the political transition to Labour.
Barton was strongly criticised by MPs in 2022 for his handling of the chaotic withdrawal of UK staff after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, and oversaw the merger of the Foreign Office with the International Development Department in 2020.
Robbins, who was recently made a partner at Hakluyt, a consultancy founded by ex-MI6 intelligence officers, had not previously been linked with the job. He oversaw Brexit negotiations under Theresa May before leaving the civil service in December 2019.
He was thought to be the preferred choice of Sue Gray, Starmer’s former chief of staff, for the role of the UK’s most senior civil servant. However, some within No 10 were keen for someone with less Brexit-related baggage.
Chris Wormald, a career civil servant who heads the health department, was the surprise choice to become the new cabinet secretary.
Robbins joined the civil service as a faststreamer in 1996, working for 10 years in the Treasury before moving to No 10 as the principal private secretary for Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown.
In July 2010 he was appointed deputy national security adviser, and in 2013 was involved with the government’s attempts to intercept files containing documents leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
In 2014, Robbins was appointed head of civil service reform, before moving to the Home Office to become the second most senior civil servant in the department, with responsibility for borders and immigration.
Robbins was appointed the head of the European and Global Issues Secretariat in July 2016, advising Theresa May on the European Union and Britain’s exit from the block. His role in negotiating a Brexit deal led to some Conservative MPs blaming him for an anti-Brexit “establishment plot”.
