HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Senior Civil Service appointments at HM Treasury including Nicholas Macpherson [April 2001]

The press release issued by HM Treasury on 11 April 2001.

Following a Whitehall-wide competition, Nicholas Macpherson will be promoted to Managing Director of the Treasury’s Public Services Directorate from 23 April.

In addition, following John Gieve’s move to Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, Jon Cunliffe will be promoted to Managing Director of the Treasury’s Financial Regulation and Industry Directorate from the same date.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Nicholas Macpherson, aged 41, joined the Treasury in 1985 after working as an economist at the CBI and Peat Marwick. He has held various posts, working on social security, tax policy, public expenditure control and economic and monetary union.  In the mid-1990s, he was Principal Private Secretary to Kenneth Clarke and Gordon Brown.  He subsequently worked on the Taylor review of the tax and benefit system, and over the last three years has been the director of welfare reform, leading Treasury work on tax and benefit reform, child poverty and employment issues.  He chaired the review of welfare to work spending in the 2000 spending review.

The Public Services Directorate’s main objective is to improve the quality and cost effectiveness of public services.

Jon Cunliffe, aged 47, has spent the last three years leading  Treasury work on the international financial system, its institutions (IMF, World Bank etc), the G7 summit and non-EU economies.  Previous jobs in the Treasury have included leading the Treasury’s work on operational independence of the Bank of England and on European Monetary Union, management of the Government’s debt and foreign currency reserves, UK Alternate Director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Public Sector Pay.  Jon joined the civil service in 1980.  He spent the early part of his career in the Departments of Environment and Transport, where he served as Private Secretary to three Secretaries of State for Transport.

The Financial Regulation and Industry Directorate’s main objectives are:

• Increasing the productivity of the economy and expanding economic and employment opportunities for all, through productive investment, competition, innovation, enterprise, better regulation and increased employability; and

• Securing an efficient market in financial services and banking with fair and effective supervision.