Sir Keir Starmer’s principal private secretary, Ninjeri Pandit, is leaving her role, Sky News understands.
She has been in post less than a year and is the third senior aide to Sir Keir to leave their role in 12 months, after chief of staff Sue Gray and director of communications Matt Doyle.
It is worth noting that Mr Doyle and Ms Gray were political appointees, while Ms Pandit is a civil servant.
Sky News understands that Ms Pandit will stay on in Downing Street to help with policy delivery and working on the prime minister’s “priorities”.
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It is not yet known who might replace her as Sir Keir’s principal private secretary, but an internal recruitment process is underway.
The BBC earlier reported that the PM had “become concerned” that Ms Pandit was “ineffective” in the role, though a Downing Street source insisted that Ms Pandit retained Sir Keir’s “trust and confidence”.
Downing Street declined to comment on internal staffing.
Once praised by Johnson’s top aide
According to her biography on the government website, Ms Pandit was the director of the Downing Street policy unit from late 2022, when Rishi Sunak was prime minister.
Before that, she worked on health policy in Downing Street, and was chief of staff and lead policy adviser to the NHS England CEO.
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In a blog post from 2021, former Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings said Ms Pandit was “one of the many brilliant young women I saw around the table who would have been a 10 [times] better PM than [Boris Johnson]”.
The principal private secretary runs the prime minister’s private office and manages the civil service team in Downing Street.
