Shortly after losing his Parliamentary seat, he was appointed Downing Street Chief of Staff by Theresa May, following the resignations of Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy on 10 June 2017.

Gavin Laurence Barwell was born in January 1972 in Cuckfield, West Sussex, and subsequently moved to Croydon, South London, where he was educated at the Trinity School of John Whitgift.

[2] He worked at the Conservative Research Department from 1993 to 1995 as a desk officer in the home affairs section responsible for housing, local government, the environment and inner cities.

He replaced James Gray as Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for the Environment John Gummer from 1995 to 1997, and was the Head of Local Government from 1998 to 2003.

[2] He worked with Deputy Party Chairman Michael Ashcroft's target seat scheme, and significantly contributed to the Conservatives' 2010 general election plan.

[5] His main subject interests are education, urban policy, policing, the criminal justice system, immigration and asylum rights.

[23][20] In December 2014, the local paper The Croydon Advertiser called on Barwell to "stop launching campaigns" and "persistent attempts at headline-grabbing" saying "Gavin, we get it, there's an election on.

"[24] The page on Wikipedia was one of a number edited ahead of the 2015 general election by computers inside parliament; an act which The Daily Telegraph said "appears to be a deliberate attempt to hide embarrassing information from the electorate".

[26] Barwell was found in a separate investigation to be in breach of the Code of Conduct by Kathryn Hudson, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

[citation needed] In the run up to the Grenfell disaster, Barwell was contacted seven times by the Fire Safety and Rescue All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), chaired by David Amess MP.

[30] At a similar time, a letter of concern about the use of these materials in residential buildings, particularly blocks of flats, was issued by the London Fire Brigade Commissioner, which had also gone unanswered.

[33] When he lost his seat he was awarded a "loss of office" (redundancy) grant of £8,802 in line with his age and length of parliamentary service.

[37] Following the departure of Theresa May as Prime Minister in July 2019, Barwell stepped down as Chief of Staff and was replaced by Dominic Cummings and Sir Eddie Lister.