Sir Alex Chisholm | |
---|---|
Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary | |
In office 14 April 2020 –2 April 2024 | |
Deputy | James Bowler Sue Gray |
Cabinet Secretary | Sir Mark Sedwill Simon Case |
Chancellor | Michael Gove Steve Barclay Kit Malthouse Nadhim Zahawi Oliver Dowden |
Preceded by | Sir John Manzoni |
Succeeded by | Cat Little |
Chief Operating Officer of the Civil Service | |
In office 14 April 2020 –2 April 2024 | |
Head | Sir Mark Sedwill Simon Case |
Preceded by | Sir John Manzoni [a] |
Succeeded by | Cat Little |
Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Business,Energy and Industrial Strategy | |
In office 5 September 2016 –14 April 2020 | |
Prime Minister | Theresa May Boris Johnson |
Minister | Greg Clark Andrea Leadsom Alok Sharma |
Preceded by | Sir Martin Donnelly |
Succeeded by | Sarah Munby |
Personal details | |
Born | 2 January 1968 |
Children | Aidan Chisholm,Ciarán Chisholm,Gabriel Chisholm |
Alma mater | Merton College,Oxford INSEAD |
Sir Alexander James Chisholm KCB (born 2 January 1968) is a British civil servant and former regulator,who served as Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary and the chief operating officer of the United Kingdom's Civil Service between April 2020 and April 2024.
He was previously the permanent secretary at the Department for Business,Energy and Industrial Strategy from September 2016 to April 2020 and permanent secretary at the Department for Energy and Climate Change during 2016. Chisholm was previously the chief executive of the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority and chair of the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation,and has held senior positions in the media,technology and e-commerce industries.
Alex Chisholm was born on 2 January 1968 in London to parents Ian Duncan Chisholm and Annabel Chisholm. [1] His father was a consultant psychiatrist and his mother was a daughter of the 2nd Baron Windlesham. [2] [3] He was privately educated at Downside School before studying history at Merton College,Oxford,and a Master of Business Administration degree at INSEAD. [4] [1]
Chisholm began work as a civil servant in 1990,working at the Department of Trade and Industry and Office of Fair Trading (OFT) until 1997. [1] He specialised in competition policy and the media,communications and financial services sectors.
He then worked for three years for Pearson plc and the Financial Times,before spending some years working for technology companies,eCountries Inc and Ecceleration Ltd. [4] He also founded and ran Heritage Bulbs,a company specialising in the provision of rare and historic bulbs. [5]
In 2007 Chisholm was appointed as a commissioner of the Commission for Communications Regulation in Ireland,becoming its chair in February 2010. [6] He left the role to become the first chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the United Kingdom,with his appointment announced on 8 January 2013. [7] The CMA was formally launched on 1 October 2013 and became fully operational on 1 April 2014. It brought together most of the responsibilities of the former OFT and the former Competition Commission. Chisholm,after taking up his post,was responsible for merging these two bodies and streamlining their operations. [8]
In 2014,the CMA began an inquiry into the banking sector,which was opposed by major banks. [9] The authority found that HSBC and First Trust Bank had broken competition rules. [10] During a talk to the Institute of Directors,he defended the existence of regulators because "some market participants can ruin it for everybody" and that Bitcoin provided "welcome competition". [11] In 2015,Chisholm wrote in a Financial Times article that proposed taxi regulations by Transport for London,following protests against ride-sharing firm Uber,would "artificially restrict competition". [12] [13] In 2016 he announced a CMA report that advocated abolishing passenger rail franchising to allow different companies to run services on the same routes. [14]
Chisholm was appointed as permanent secretary to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in 2016,and continued as permanent secretary for the Department for Business,Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) after it was created nine days later in September 2016 by merging DECC and the Department for Business,Innovation and Skills. [15] [16] His appointment was criticised by OVO Energy founder Stephen Fitzpatrick who said that a CMA inquiry into the energy industry that was run while he was chief executive was "subjected to lobbying from the big six" that resulted in reforms that The Times described as "watered down". [17] The review opposed the introduction of energy price caps,which BEIS introduced in 2019 while Chisholm was its permanent secretary. [18] [19] In November 2024 he was questioned by the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry on his role in resolving the litigation with subpostmasters while at the Department. [20]
In April 2020 he was appointed as chief operating officer of the civil service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary,succeeding John Manzoni who had served as chief executive of the civil service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary. The role,as the civil service's "second in command",includes leading reform of the civil service and advising on the COVID-19 pandemic. [21] [22] [23] He began the new role on 14 April 2020. [24] In February 2024 it was announced that Chisholm would be succeeded by Cat Little. [25]
Chisholm was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for public service. [26]
Chisholm married Eliza Pakenham,daughter of Thomas Pakenham and granddaughter of the 7th Earl of Longford (Frank Longford),in 1993. [1] [27] They have three sons and live in London. [1] He has been a trustee of Breadline Africa,an international charity,since 2003,and served as its deputy chair. [1] [6]
Daniel Korski is a UK-based Danish political adviser and businessperson. He worked as deputy head of the Number 10 Policy Unit for David Cameron and served as a vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council. He founded the business PUBLIC, which aims to support technology companies to secure public sector contracts.
Mark Philip Sedwill, Baron Sedwill, is a British diplomat and senior civil servant who served as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service to Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson from 2018 to 2020. He also served as the United Kingdom National Security Adviser from 2017 to 2020. He was previously the United Kingdom's Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010 and the NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan in 2010. He was the Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office from February 2013 to April 2017.
Amber Augusta Rudd is a British former politician who served as Home Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2018 to 2019. She was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hastings and Rye, first elected in 2010, representing the Conservative Party, and stood down from parliament in 2019. She identifies herself as a one-nation conservative, and has been associated with both socially liberal and economically liberal policies.
Sir Oliver Robbins is a former senior British civil servant who served as the Prime Minister's Europe Adviser and the chief Brexit negotiator from 2017 to 2019. He was a controversial figure among Brexit supporters for his perceived pro-European stance. He previously served as the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union from July 2016 to September 2017, and as the Prime Minister's Advisor on Europe and Global Issues from June 2016 to July 2016. Since 2019, he has been an investment advisor at Goldman Sachs.
Michael Benedict Emmerson CBE KC is a British barrister, specialising in public international law, human rights and humanitarian law, and international criminal law. From 2011 to 2017, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism. Emmerson is currently an Appeals Chamber Judge of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals sitting on the Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He has previously served as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Special Adviser to the Appeals Chamber of the ECCC.
Robert Edward Jenrick is a British politician who has been Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor since November 2024. He previously served in the Cabinet as Minister of State for Immigration from 2022 to 2023 and as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government from 2019 to 2021. He also served in the government as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2018 to 2019 and as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, Jenrick has been Member of Parliament for Newark since the 2014 by-election.
Sir John Alexander Manzoni is a British senior civil servant and business executive, who served as chief executive of the civil service and the Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary from 2014 to 2020.
Nusrat Munir Ul-Ghani is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Sussex Weald since 2024, having represented the predecessor constituency Wealden from 2015 to 2024. She has served as Chairman of Ways and Means, the senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons since 2024.
Jonathan Slater is a former high ranking British civil servant. From May 2016, he was Permanent Secretary of the Department for Education until his abrupt dismissal on 26 August 2020 following a controversy over national school examination grades.
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union or, informally, Brexit Secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the business of the Department for Exiting the European Union, as well as for the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU), informally referred to as "Brexit". The secretary of state oversaw Brexit negotiations following a 2016 referendum, in which a majority of those who voted were in favour of exiting the EU. The officeholder was a member of the Cabinet.
The Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) was a ministerial department of the United Kingdom Government, from July 2016 to February 2023.
Darren Paul Jones is a British politician who has served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury since July 2024, having previously been Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from September 2023 to July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament for Bristol North West since 2017. He previously chaired the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee from 2020 to 2023.
Susan Gray is a British special adviser and former civil servant who served as Downing Street Chief of Staff under Prime Minister Keir Starmer from July to October 2024, having previously served under Starmer as Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Opposition from 2023 to 2024. She has served as Envoy to the Prime Minister for the Nations and Regions since 6 October 2024.
The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) is a professional association for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association was formed by junior doctors led by Samantha Batt-Rawden in January 2018 in response to the Bawa-Garba case.
Phil Gaetjens is an Australian public servant and former Liberal Party staffer, who served as the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from 2019 to 2022.
Sarah Anne Munby is a British civil servant who has served as the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology since February 2023. She was previously the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from July 2020 to February 2023.
The Greensill scandal was a political controversy in the United Kingdom related to lobbying activities on behalf of financial services company Greensill Capital. It implicated former Prime Minister David Cameron, former Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood and several other civil servants, and occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jeremy Mark Pocklington CB is a British civil servant who has served as Permanent Secretary of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero since February 2023. He served as Permanent Secretary of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) from March 2020 to February 2023. He was formerly Director General for Housing and Planning at the MHCLG, having served in that role from August 2018 until his appointment as Permanent Secretary at the MHCLG.
The Sunak ministry began on 25 October 2022 when Rishi Sunak was invited by King Charles III to succeed Liz Truss as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Truss resigned as leader of the Conservative Party the previous day after Sunak was elected unopposed as her successor. The Sunak ministry was formed from the 2019 Parliament of the United Kingdom, as a Conservative majority government. Sunak reshuffled his cabinet twice, first in February 2023 and later in November 2023.