PM’s chief adviser called for ‘weirdos and misfits’ to email him directly about jobs

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, will not be allowed to bypass Whitehall’s usual recruitment processes when recruiting “weirdos” and “misfits” for Downing Street jobs, No 10 has said.

Cummings has been criticised by employment lawyers and unions after posting a rambling 2,900-word blogpost calling for people with “odd skills” to circumvent the usual rules in applying for jobs as special advisers and officials in government.

“It’s important when dealing with large organisations to dart around at different levels, not be stuck with formal hierarchies. It will seem chaotic and ‘not proper No 10 process’ to some. But the point of this government is to do things differently and better,” he wrote.

The prime minister’s spokesman insisted the post was aimed only at seeking “expressions of interest” and that civil servants would still be appointed within the usual tight procedures of the civil service.

“What we are doing is equipping the government for the specific challenge of making sure that we absolutely deliver on the people’s priorities,” he said.

“It is important to see what the blog is – it is seeking expressions of interest. Civil servants continue to be appointed in the usual way.

“The government is committed to levelling up across every part of the United Kingdom and we will take whatever innovative steps are required to deliver that.”

Lawyers raised alarm bells after Cummings called for 21-year-old recruits to apply for jobs that would not allow time for them to have a girlfriend or boyfriend, as well as claiming they could be sacked quickly if they did not “fit”.

Cummings, who has said he wants to overhaul civil service recruitment, wrote that he wanted “true wild cards” to email him directly if they believed they were qualified to work as special advisers “and perhaps some as officials”.

He called for applications from data scientists, software engineers, economists, policy experts, project managers, communication experts and junior researchers – one of whom to act as his personal assistant – who were “weirdos and misfits with odd skills”.

Dominic Cummings, the civil service and Kafka | Letters Read more

In one section, Cummings wrote that he wanted to bring in “super-talented weirdos” with “genuine cognitive diversity” and avoid senior civil service applicants with Oxford and Cambridge English degrees.

“We need some true wild cards, artists, people who never went to university and fought their way out of an appalling hell hole, weirdos from William Gibson novels like that girl hired by Bigend as a brand ‘diviner’ who feels sick at the sight of Tommy Hilfiger or that Chinese-Cuban free runner from a crime family hired by the KGB.

“If you want to figure out what characters around Putin might do, or how international criminal gangs might exploit holes in our border security, you don’t want more Oxbridge English graduates who chat about [French psychoanalyst Jacques] Lacan at dinner parties with TV producers and spread fake news about fake news,” he said.

Sir David Normington, a former permanent secretary of both the Department for Education and the Home Office, told the Observer that Cummings would not be able to reform Whitehall without support from senior officials.

“It is a big machine and one person can’t change it without lots of allies. You do need the machine,” he said.

One of the UK’s top employment lawyers previously told the Guardian that the post was “quite outrageous from an employment law perspective”.

“I am surprised the cabinet secretary allowed this advert to go out,” said John Bowers QC, a leading employment barrister.

Philip Landau, a specialist employment lawyer at Landau Law Solicitors, identified potential issues with Cummings’ mentions of the likely age of candidates. “It is not usually advisable to set out a specific age in an advertisement in case it can amount to discrimination. This is unless there is an occupational requirement to do so.”