Chartered psychologists are each being paid an estimated 250 pounds per hour to act as mentors to the health secretary and her senior civil servants.

In a new training technique being used widely in Whitehall, ministers and their staff are assigned personal coaches, whom they are expected to treat as "critical friends", using role-playing sessions to prepare for running the country.

A string of other government departments, including No 10, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Transport and the Treasury, are also using chartered psychologists, at an annual cost estimated at several million pounds.