Simon Case rules himself out of potentially scandalous bid for GCHQ director role

The United Kingdom’s Cabinet Secretary Simon Case has ruled himself out of a potentially scandalous bid to take over the reins at spy agency GCHQ.

Case, who is the most senior member of Britain’s civil service, had been touted as a potential applicant for the role by several sources with connections to the cyber and signals intelligence agency. None of them welcomed the idea.

Responding to The Record, a Cabinet Office spokesperson stressed that Case was not applying for the role. In a statement they added: “The Cabinet Secretary is focused on ensuring that the Civil Service and the whole of Government is delivering the Prime Minister's pledges to the British people.”

The Cabinet Secretary is chairing the panel for the internal civil service competition to replace Sir Jeremy Fleming, whose departure from GCHQ was announced on Thursday. The recruitment process “will include a written application, assessments, and a final interview,” according to a spokesperson for the intelligence agency.

Case, the youngest Cabinet Secretary in a century, has been in office since 2020 during an exceptionally turbulent period in British politics — he is now serving his third prime minister. He is currently being scrutinized for his role in several scandals, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has given Case his backing.

Part of the concern regarding Case’s chances at securing the role was the perception that he is closer to the country’s political leadership than civil servants are normally expected to be. A recent feature-length profile by POLITICO described Case as “a civil servant who operates more as a ministerial courtier than the traditional, faceless mandarin.”

Unlike in the United States where the heads of intelligence agencies are explicitly nominated by the country’s political leadership and then confirmed by the Senate, the recruitment process for the heads of Britain’s intelligence agencies are strictly internal, and ostensibly insulated from political interference.

But recent changes to the recruitment process for the heads of GCHQ, the Secret Intelligence Service, and the U.K. Security Service, traditionally known as MI5 — permitting the prime minister to veto a proposed candidate and have the process re-run — have been seen as enabling more political control over the appointments.

Since GCHQ was founded in 1919 — initially under the name of the Government Code and Cypher School — it has had 16 chiefs, all of whom have been men. Several people with knowledge of the recruitment process but who are not directly involved said there is a desire for the next director to be a woman.