01-08-2025
MoD civil servant to step down in wake of Afghan data leak
The Ministry of Defence's most senior civil servant is stepping down in the wake of the Afghan data breach.
David Williams, the department's permanent secretary, is understood to be quitting in the autumn as part of a planned shake-up of the MoD senior leadership, The Telegraph understands.
Mr Williams's departure comes amid ongoing fallout over the handling of a data leak that placed up to 100,000 Afghans at risk. A recruitment process for his successor is under way, an MoD spokesman confirmed.
A career civil servant, Mr Williams worked in the MoD 's finance department before being seconded to the Department for Health and Social Care in 2020. He returned to the MoD as its permanent secretary in 2021.
His successor will be appointed after Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, currently the head of the Royal Air Force, takes his post as Chief of the Defence Staff in September, it is understood.
A new national armaments director – a senior civil servant in charge of defence procurement and infrastructure – is intended to be hired before the end of the year, although the recruitment process for that job has been ongoing since December.
The MoD spokesman said: 'Permanent Secretary David Williams will step down this autumn, and the recruitment process for his successor is under way. Since 2021, David has led the department through a period of significant activity, and we thank him for his contribution.'
A spreadsheet containing the details of 25,000 Afghans, including soldiers who fought alongside British special forces, together with family details, was accidentally leaked by a member of British special forces personnel in February 2022.
As a result, 50,000 Afghan former soldiers and their family members were then brought to the UK at a cost of £7bn.
When the MoD learnt of the breach more than a year later, it was granted a super-injunction to prevent the public from knowing the leaked spreadsheet – which also contained the details of more than 100 SAS soldiers and MI6 spies – was circulating online.
Plans were made to add a total of 6,900 individuals to existing evacuation plans, taking place under the codename Operation Rubific.
The super-injunction meant that media outlets subject to it, including The Telegraph, could not even mention the fact they had been gagged from reporting a matter of huge public interest.
Parliamentary questions about the impact of the data breach and its resulting costs have so far shed limited light on how the MoD has sought to handle the multi-billion-pound fallout.
Some £5mn has been spent over the last 11 months alone on flying Afghans from their home country to the UK, the MoD has confirmed.
Lord Kempsell, the Tory peer, asked the Government how much it had spent on secretly moving Afghans caught up in the data breach to Britain.
Lord Coaker, the Labour defence minister, said the average cost of flights per month has been £457,833.33.
He said in his Parliamentary statement: 'The MoD has used both RAF and charter flights. Additionally, the International Organisation for Migration to resettle eligible Afghans has run charter flights.
'For reasons that are commercially and operationally sensitive, we cannot name the companies that organised the charter flights.'
