The Government of the United Kingdom is divided into departments that each have responsibility, according to the government, for putting government policy into practice. There are currently 24 ministerial departments, 20 non-ministerial departments, and 422 agencies and other public bodies, for a total of 465 departments.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the entire United Kingdom. Concordats set out agreed frameworks for cooperation, between it and the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive, which have devolved responsibilities for these matters in their respective nations.
The Welsh Government is the executive arm of the devolved government of Wales. The government consists of cabinet secretaries and ministers. It is led by the first minister, usually the leader of the largest party in the Senedd, who selects ministers with the approval of the Senedd. The government is responsible for tabling policy in devolved areas for consideration by the Senedd and implementing policy that has been approved by it.
Andrew Turnbull, Baron Turnbull, is a British politician and civil servant who served as the head of Her Majesty's Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary between 2002 and 2005, when he was succeeded by Sir Gus O'Donnell. He now sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is an executive agency of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Prior to Brexit, the RPA delivered the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments to farmers and traders in England, paying out over £2 billion in subsidies each year. The Agency managing more than 40 schemes, the largest of which the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) paying more than £1.5 billion to around 105,000 claimants a year.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs is a government department in the Northern Ireland Executive, the devolved administration for Northern Ireland. The minister with overall responsibility for the department is the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. The department was called the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development between 1999 and 2016. The Minister of Agriculture previously existed in the Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972, where the department was known as the Ministry of Agriculture. The current Permanent Secretary is Katrina Godfrey.
The UK Government Decontamination Service is an organisation within the UK Government that provides advice and guidance to help the UK resist and recover from any deliberate or accidental release of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials (CBRN) or from major accidental releases of hazardous materials (HAZMAT).
Dame Deirdre Mary Hutton, is a British public servant, termed by The Daily Telegraph as "Queen of the Quangos" and "The great quango hopper". She was the chair of the UK's Civil Aviation Authority from 2009 to 2020.
Dame Helen Frances Ghosh, is a former British civil servant who has been Master of Balliol College, Oxford since 2018. She was previously Director-General of the National Trust from November 2012 to April 2018.
Dame Ursula Brennan is a retired British civil servant and a former Permanent Secretary at the United Kingdom's Ministry of Justice where she was also the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery.
Bronwyn Hill CBE is a former British civil servant, who served as the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Philip John Rycroft is a British civil servant who served as the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union from 2017 to 2019.
The Department for Exiting the European Union was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for overseeing negotiations relating to Brexit, and establishing the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU. It was formed by the Prime Minister, Theresa May, in July 2016, in the wake of the referendum vote to leave the European Union. The department was dissolved on 31 January 2020 when Brexit took effect.
Katrina Williams is a British civil servant who is the current Deputy Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the European Union, serving under Tim Barrow.
Louise Heathwaite is a British environmental scientist. She is Distinguished Professor in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Research and Enterprise. She is a hydrochemist working on diffuse environmental pollution, especially the pathways of nitrogen and phosphorus loss from agricultural land to water.
Tamara Margaret Finkelstein is a British civil servant who is currently the permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Shona Hunter Dunn is the CEO of the First Aid charity St John Ambulance and a former British civil servant, serving from October 2018 to May 2024 as the Second Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.
Heather Jane Hancock is a former civil servant who has held numerous positions related to North Yorkshire. Since 1 October 2020, she has been Master of St John's College, Cambridge.
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.
A permanent under-secretary of state, known informally as a permanent secretary, is the most senior civil servant of a ministry in the United Kingdom, charged with running the department on a day-to-day basis. Permanent secretaries are appointed under a scheme in which the prime minister has the final say in the recruitment process; since 2015, the PM chooses directly from a list created by the Civil Service Commissioners rather than only having a veto over the Commissioners' preferred candidate.
