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The Cabinet Office is recruiting a new civil servant to oversee HR policy for government ministers' special advisers.

The "high profile and stretching" £60,000-a-year role has been advertised after reports of tensions between the government and the civil service over recruitment and treatment of staff.

Duties include revising HR policies for special advisers, known as Spads.

It comes after PM Boris Johnson's senior adviser Dominic Cummings talked of a need to "upgrade" Spads' skills.

In a blog post in January Mr Cummings called for "weirdos and misfits" to work in Whitehall and said the civil service lacked people with "deep expertise in specific fields".

According to a report by Buzzfeed, the new Cabinet Office role has been created in response to concerns within the civil service about No 10's treatment of staff.

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The Cabinet Office has not commented on Buzzfeed's article.

A Downing Street source said arrangements for Spads "have been undergoing change for some time", adding: "This is not new."

The BBC's political correspondent Jonathan Blake said the role of Spads has been under scrutiny since Mr Johnson became prime minister.

Former Chancellor Sajid Javid "voiced his anger" to Mr Johnson when one of his Spads, Sonia Khan, was escorted from Downing Street by police after being sacked in August last year.

No reason was given for her dismissal, but the BBC's Iain Watson said it was suggested the issue was about whether she could be trusted to be transparent with No 10.

Mr Javid resigned as chancellor in February after rejecting Mr Johnson's demand that he fire his entire team of aides as part of a government reshuffle.