Who will Wes pick?
The Department of Health and Social Care is recruiting for a new Permanent Secretary. With nearly £200 billion of expenditure this is a crucial role.
Wes Streeting’s Department of Health is recruiting for a new second Permanent Secretary (Perm Sec).
The advertisement closes at 5pm this Monday.
Some of the bigger departments do not just have one ‘Sir Humphrey’ - one Permanent Secretary (the top civil servant in any Government department). They have a second top-ranking official. For example, the Home Office has Simon Ridley, HM Treasury has Beth Russell, the Environment Department has Nick Joicey.
Second Perm Secs (‘2PS’ is the Whitehall lingo, there’s an acronym for everything) can be a useful addition to a department. They can deputise for the main Permanent Secretary (to whom they report). A reformist minster might find they can provide extra bandwidth to drive a programme. For example, Andy Haldane was Perm Sec in charge of Levelling Up, during the preparation of the Levelling Up White Paper. At other times it offers a route to promote somebody who needs to be moved for one reason or another. For example, Liz Truss’s brief period in Downing Street saw Nick Joicey moved to run the central Cabinet Office domestic secretariat (the team which controls the agreement of most policy through Cabinet). Many civil servants thought this was a difficult role for the husband of the (then) Shadow Chancellor to hold, and he was subsequently found a berth in the Environment Department.
What’s interesting is that this is the second time the role has been advertised - it was last advertised in May of this year. But no appointment was made then. So this is take two.
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