Forest Hill councillor Sophie Davis moves on to Whitehall

We published our council political charts on 1 April, but on 10 April found out that our final chart, for March 2026, was incorrect.

A reader alerted us to a "casual vacancy" on the council's website which showed that an unnamed Forest Hill councillor had resigned on 12 January, four months before the local elections.

Using the Wayback machine, we found out this was Sophie Davis.

When we tried to find out more, the council passed our query to Lewisham Labour, and eventually a spokesperson confirmed that Sophie Davis had taken up a role as a special advisor (spad).

Civil servants but without the impartiality and objectivity

Special advisors are considered a type of civil servant, but politically appointed.

While civil servants are required to show "integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality" and at more senior levels cannot be a member of a political party, special advisors are not required to show objectivity and impartiality.

In formal terms they are temporary civil servants, without the full set of obligations.

Special advisors are paid by the taxpayer and in theory there is transparency around their names, appointing minister and pay grades.

But in practice, this data is provided once a year and is already several months out of date when published.

The most recent data for 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 shows 130 special advisors with a total taxpayer bill of £16.7m.

Lewisham Labour told us that Sophie Davis' new role was "incompatible" with continuing as a councillor and "formal notice was given through the proper legal channels".

No public announcement

A council spokesperson later confirmed that they published the notice of vacancy on 12 January and "we are not required to report it to full council."

The resignation was not reported at the next full council meeting on 28 January or the following one on 4 March, the vacancy was not added to the council's notice board outside the town hall (which is still showing a notice of casual vacancy from 2023) and there was no other public announcement.

Because the resignation happened within 6 months of an election, the council was not legally required to have a by-election .. but it still matters to residents to know who is representing them.

Ward level newsletters carried on mentioning Sophie Davis in their monthly emails, and Forest Hill residents were still under the impression that Sophie Davis would be attending regular surgeries in the library with her colleagues.

Forest Hill residents had no idea that one of their councillors had gone.

According to Linked In, Sophie Davies is still Director of Research at Crest Advisory, which describes itself as "the UK's only consultancy with a crime and justice focus".

She was formerly head of Home Affairs and Justice at the Behavioural Insights Team. It was established within the UK government, and describes itself as "the world's first 'nudge unit'".

While a Lewisham councillor, Sophie Davis was a member of the Safer, Stronger Communities select committee and frequently declared conflicts of interest due to her work with Behavioural Insights and then her role at Crest, and their many clients including the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office and the Probation Service.

This came up on at least four occasions in 2025, including on the agenda item "Live Facial recognition", where Sophie Davis declared that she worked in the policy area and that the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime and the Violence Reduction Unit were clients.

Home secretary Shabana Mahmoud has been heavily promoting the national rollout of facial recognition technology.

We asked Lewisham council, Lewisham Labour, the home office and the cabinet office for more information about the appointment but received no response.

Updated on 1 May at 09:53 with correction - restriction on civil servants being members of political parties only applies to senior grades.

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