Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is set to appoint Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, an outside candidate, to replace Tom Scholar as the Treasury's chief civil servant.
Government sources told the Financial Times that she had emerged as Kwarteng's "clear preference" to lead the finance ministry, although the final decision is subject to Prime Minister Liz Truss and cabinet secretary Simon Case. If appointed, she would be the first woman to hold the post.
Romeo would be a departure from the Treasury's past. All of her competitors for the top position have worked for the department, whose "orthodoxy" was criticised by Truss during the Tory leadership race.
Kwasi Kwarteng ousts the Treasury's most senior civil servant
Tom Scholar, the long-standing permanent secretary to the Treasury, was sacked by Kwarteng in his first week as chancellor last month, in one of his first moves to remodel the ministry.
During the contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Kwarteng and now prime minister Liz Truss heavily criticised the Treasury. Truss vowed to challenge the ministry's "economic orthodoxy", which she attributes to Britain's sluggish economic growth.
In 2016, Scholar took over from former permanent secretary to the Treasury Nicholas Macpherson, who had spent over 11 years in the job and worked under three chancellors.
