![\"Deputy](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/240\/cpsprodpb\/10A99\/production\/_128494286_rabbreuters.jpg.webp)
<\/picture><\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nDays after the prime minister sacked his party chairman, another staffing time bomb is ticking under his government.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ministers tell us privately they expect Rishi Sunak’s deputy, Dominic Raab, to be the next senior figure to be shown the door by the prime minister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The deputy prime minister and justice secretary has a senior lawyer crawling over his conduct in three government departments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He is the subject of eight formal complaints.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The trade union the First Division Association, which represents civil servants, has said it understands dozens of people are involved in those complaints.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr Raab has repeatedly denied being a bully or breaking the ministerial code.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Plenty of people who have worked with Mr Raab speak highly of doing so, although even those that do often describe him, as one minister did, as “robust.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Others, like the senior figure quoted above, are much more critical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Right now, all of this is being looked into by Adam Tolley KC, the lawyer appointed by the prime minister to interview witnesses and write a report about what has happened.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The inquiry, which is speaking to witnesses right now, means people, including those with the strongest views and most arresting personal experiences of working with Mr Raab, are very reluctant to talk publicly about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But we wanted to share with you what people who have worked for Mr Raab, serve alongside him in government and in the Conservative Party are saying to us privately.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And explore why it is that the prime minister appears to have a persistent human resources problem: a party chairman sacked, a loyal supporter in Sir Gavin Williamson, a former minister, resigning over bullying allegations he said he refuted, and now this.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One source said, of a department in which Mr Raab had worked, “everyone knew”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “Everyone in Westminster, I mean everyone, has known about this for ages. It’s no secret. And anyone who says they haven’t has chosen not to listen,” said another minister, adding, “He should have gone ages ago.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It raises the question of how much Mr Sunak ought to have known at the point he appointed Mr Raab last October.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The prime minister has always insisted, as he did here under repeated questioning in a BBC interview in November, that he didn’t know of any “formal” complaints about Mr Raab when he appointed him his deputy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
‘It’s no secret’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n