A former civil servant has revealed four simple ways to fix the "broken British state" after warning the UK will not be able to tackle the small boats crisis unless Whitehall undergoes major reform.
Ameer Kotecha, an ex-Foreign Office mandarin who headed up the British Consulate in Russia between 2023 and 2025, resigned from the civil service this month following Sir Keir Starmer's "craven surrender" of the Chagos Islands.
However, the former diplomat also shed some light on the inner workings of Whitehall, arguing: "There is a system that exists that doesn't harness talent."
In an interview with GB News, Mr Kotecha identified some of the "low-hanging fruit" changes that would help transform Whitehall.
The 34-year-old lamented a lack of focus on performance and a "jobs for life" culture as the first major issue in Whitehall.
"I do think there's a big problem there," Mr Kotecha told GB News.
"And the solutions, I think, are being far tougher on underperformance… almost no one loses their job in the civil service for underperformance.
“That's not to say I get any pleasure out of seeing people get the sack. But as anyone in the private sector notices, if you don't get rid of the underperforming, it drags the whole organisation down."
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