Former Brexit negotiator Sir Oliver Robbins is expected to be appointed as the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, the BBC understands.
He will take over from Sir Philip Barton, who became permanent secretary in 2020 but decided to step down this month before the end of the full five-year term achieved by his predecessors.
It is understood Sir Oliver did not initially apply for the role, but will now return to the civil service to take the job – having left in 2019 after overseeing the Brexit negotiations.
Sir Oliver’s appointment, first reported by The Guardian, may ruffle feathers in the Foreign Office as he will be seen as an outsider having not worked for the department before.
Sir Oliver is expected to oversee a series of broad reforms to the way the Foreign Office works.
Before leaving the civil service, he was seen as a high-flier having served as principal private secretary for Sir Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown.
Sir Oliver then became deputy national security adviser, deputy permanent secretary at the Home Office and head of the Department for Exiting the European Union.
Sir Philip decision to stand down early comes after he was criticised by MPs in 2022 for his handling of the chaotic withdrawal of UK staff after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.
During the evacuation, Sir Philip took a 17-day holiday – which he told the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee he regretted.
Sir Philip claimed it was not clear Kabul would fall so quickly when he went on leave, but his absence was viewed as a failure of leadership, and he was criticised for weakening the FCDO’s response.
In his four years as head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir Philip served under five foreign secretaries: Dominic Raab, Liz Truss, James Cleverly, Lord Cameron and David Lammy.
He has previously held a number of public service roles, including as the Foreign Office’s director general, consular and security, and as the acting chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee in the Cabinet Office.
He was also the former high commissioner to Islamabad, deputy head of mission in Washington, and the director of foreign policy and coordinator for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
