The Executive Team
- Robert Devereux – Permanent Secretary
- Terry Moran – Second Permanent Secretary and Chief Operating Officer
- Sue Owen – Director General, Strategy
- Gill Aitken – Director General, Professional Services
- Mike Driver – Interim Director General, Finance
- Chris Last – Director General, Human Resources and Head of Government HR Operations
- Noel Shanahan – Director General, Operations and Child Maintenance Group
Robert Devereux – Permanent Secretary
Contactable via the Departmental Secretariat, 4th Floor, Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA
Responsibilities
The Permanent Secretary is the Head of the Department, responsible for the effectiveness and efficiency of all aspects of the Department’s work in support of its Ministerially determined objectives and policies. The Permanent Secretary also carries the role of Principal Accounting Officer for the Department and is responsible for the propriety and regularity of the expenditure of the Department. The Permanent Secretary is also responsible for the leadership, management and staffing of the Department and for Departmental-wide procedures in financial and other matters.
The Head of Department’s responsibilities are extensively covered mainly in:
- Managing Public Money – Chapter Three (87KB)
- Corporate Governance in Central Government Departments – Chapter Three (251KB)
Biography
Robert rejoined the Department for Work and Pensions as Permanent Secretary on 1 January 2011, having previously spent four years with the Department for Social Security, and two years with DWP when it was first created in 2001.
Robert’s civil service career began in the Overseas Development Administration, and he has worked in HM Treasury, on secondment to Guinness Brewing Worldwide, and since 2003 in the Department for Transport, where he was Permanent Secretary for 3 years.
Robert is married, with two daughters, and lives in Kilburn, London.
Terry Moran – Second Permanent Secretary and Chief Operating Officer
Contactable via the Departmental Secretariat, 4th Floor, Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA
Role and responsibilities
Responsible for leading all of DWP’s services to the public, both those delivered by our own staff and those delivered under contract. Also the Senior Responsible Owner for the Universal Credit Programme responsible for the design and implementation of the Universal Credit . Universal Credit will simplify the benefits system by bringing together a range of working-age benefits into a single streamlined payment to make work pay and combat worklessness and poverty.
Terry is also responsible for Business Continuity for the Department.
Biography
Terry was appointed Second Permanent Secretary at DWP on 4 July 2012, continuing in his role as Chief Operating Officer which he took up on 3 October 2011, and in his role as Senior Responsible Owner for Universal Credit to which he was appointed on 1 December 2010. He has previously been the Chief Executive of the Pension, Disability and Carers Service (1 April 2008 to 30 November 2010); the Acting Chief Executive of The Pension Service (23 July 2007 to 30 March 2008); and the Chief Executive of the Disability and Carers Service (June 2004 to June 2007).
He joined the Department in 1977 straight from school as a clerical assistant and spent his first 12 years working in local offices in Yorkshire and London. Terry’s career has included time as Head of Benefits Management, Yorkshire Area Director in the Benefits Agency and Jobcentre Plus Field Director for the North West.
Sue Owen – Director General, Strategy
Contactable via the Departmental Secretariat, 4th Floor, Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA
Role and responsibilities
The Director General of Strategy advises and supports Ministers and the Head of Department in the formulation of Government policy relating to the Government’s welfare and pension reforms and social justice agenda, looking beyond the individual reforms already underway.
Biography
Sue took up post as the Director General for Strategy on 3 October, having previously joined the Department in April 2009 as its Director General of Welfare and Wellbeing. From 2006-9 she was Director General for Corporate Performance at the Department for International Development. Sue joined the Treasury in 1989 after 10 years as an academic labour market economist. She has also served in the Number 10 Policy Unit, advising on family policy, and in the British Embassy in Washington working on welfare reform. Her last post at the Treasury was as Director in charge of EMU policy and national debt.
Sue is married to Prof Martin Albrow and has 3 grown up stepsons and one son. She lives in South East London, supports Everton FC and is a keen gardener.
Gill Aitken – Director General, Professional Services
Contactable via the Departmental Secretariat, 4th Floor, Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA
Role and Responsibilities
Gill Aitken leads the Department’s Professional Services and is also DWP’s senior lawyer. Professional Services brings together the Heads of Profession for several areas of the Department and their staff: Communications, Information, Governance and Security Services, DWP and DH Legal Services, Medical and Analytical Advice, and Ministerial Private Office.
DWP’s Professional Services ensure the Department’s policies are evidence based, lawful and well communicated. Gill’s aim is to ensure that the professions’ influence on policy making and implementation strengthens the Department’s ability to deliver its objectives from welfare and pensions reform to the delivery of DWP’s existing services to the public.
As DWP’s Senior Information Risk Owner and Transparency Champion Gill is responsible both for ensuring that we both hold information securely and also use it intelligently and creatively to further the work of the Government. She also has responsibility for the department's transformation programme.
Biography
Gill took up post as the Director General of Professional Services on 3 October; having previously joined the Department as Director General of Legal Group on 1 March 2010.
Gill started her working life in the voluntary sector: lobbying and journalism on disability issues. She then qualified as a solicitor and spent several years in "the city" specialising in pharmaceutical regulation and litigation.
Wanting the buzz of government and the cutting edge challenge of public law, in 1993 Gill moved to the Government Legal Service and the legal office advising DWP and the Department of Health. Over the next few years she specialised in NHS work until she was appointed as the Legal Adviser to the Medicines Control Agency. Her first Director level role was at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2004 where she worked on the EU Common Agricultural Policy and environmental regulation. She was appointed Director General and Solicitor to Defra in January 2007, and became Defra’s Director General for Law and Corporate Services in February 2009.
Gill returned to DWP as Director General, Legal Group, on 1 March 2010 and took up the post as Director General for Professional Services on 3 October 2011.
Mike Driver – Interim Director General, Finance
Details will be published shortly.
Chris Last – Director General, Human Resources and Head of Government HR Operations
Contactable via the Departmental Secretariat, 4th Floor, Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA
Role and Responsibilities
The Human Resources Director General is Head of Profession for the Department’s HR staff. He is responsible for delivering a coherent HR service to the Department’s employees and management. Chris is also Head of Government HR Operations.
Biography
Since joining the Civil Service three years ago, Chris has focussed on transforming HR into a smaller, more focussed profession. He has introduced a graduate entry programme for HR, and the Civil Service is now the largest recruiter of HR graduates in the UK.
The senior management of HR has begun the process of reorganising HR across government from its previous model of providing each government department with its own complete HR service. Current areas of focus have been on learning, resourcing and HR policies. These changes have improved HR delivery while significantly reducing the size of HR in both cost and headcount.
Prior to joining the Civil Service Chris worked for Ford Motor Company in a large variety of HR roles based in Essex, South Wales, USA and more recently in the group office in London.
Noel Shanahan – Director General, Operations and Child Maintenance Group
Details will be published shortly.
