Sir David Omand | |
|---|---|
 Professor Sir David Omand at Chatham House, September 2013 | |
| Born | 15 April 1947 |
| Alma mater | Corpus Christi College, Cambridge |
Sir David Bruce Omand GCB (born 15 April 1947) is a British former senior civil servant who served as the Director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) from 1996 to 1997.
Omand was born on 15 April 1947. His father, Bruce, was a Justice of the Peace. Omand was educated at Glasgow Academy and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, receiving an economics degree. [1]
Omand began his career at GCHQ. [2] After working for the Ministry of Defence for a number of years, Omand was appointed Director of GCHQ from 1996 to 1997. [3] His next post was Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office. [3]
Omand was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2000 New Year Honours. [4] In 2002 he became the first Permanent Secretary and Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office. Omand was among those who decided that David Kelly should be pursued for talking to the media about the Government's dossier on Iraq's alleged WMD. [5] Omand and Kevin Tebbit, then permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, recommended to Jack Straw and Tony Blair that John Scarlett become the new head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). [5]
In 2003 Omand participated in the development of the United Kingdom's general counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. [3]
Omand was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 2004 Birthday Honours. [6] He retired from the Cabinet Office in April 2005. [3]
In 2007, he obtained Maths and Physics degrees from the Open University. [7]
In 2009 he was asked by the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, to carry out a review into the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to "satisfy ministers" that the council is "discharging the functions" that it is supposed to. [8]
On 20 January 2010, Omand gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry. [9]
In 2013 he defended the closeness of Britain's intelligence relationship with the US, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have the brains. They have the money. It's a collaboration that's worked very well." [10]
Since leaving the government, Omand has landed jobs with several military-related companies. He has been a non-executive director at UK arms company Babcock International and Italian arms company Leonardo-Finmeccanica and has also worked as an adviser to the Society of British Aerospace Companies. [11]
In October 2020, he authored a book titled How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence covering his views on long-term intelligence analysis gained from his experience working with British governments from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair. [12]
Omand is currently a visiting professor at King's College London and is a vice-president of the Royal United Services Institute. [7] [13] Omand's second book applies the idea of Just War theory to intelligence. [14]
In COMEC Occasional Papers Omand wrote about civil-military relationships in 2018. [15]
Omand participated in TEDxLambeth, a conference based in Lambeth, where he spoke about ideas from his book, How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence, in October 2020. [16]
Omand married Elizabeth Wales in 1971; they have two children. He is a member of the Reform Club. He served a four-year term on the board of the Natural History Museum, London, starting in 2006. He remains a trustee. [7]
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The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) is an interagency deliberative body of the United Kingdom responsible for intelligence assessment, coordination, and oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service, Security Service, GCHQ, and Defence Intelligence. The JIC is supported by the Joint Intelligence Organisation under the Cabinet Office.
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The Director of the Government Communications Headquarters is the highest-ranking official in the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency that specialises in signals intelligence, information assurance and cryptography. The director is a Permanent Secretary, and appointed by and reports to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
The Intelligence Co-ordinator, later Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator was a senior post in the Cabinet Office of the British Civil Service that oversaw the intelligence services and their relationship to the government.
Sir Charles Blandford Farr was a British civil servant, intelligence officer, and diplomat. He was Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and Head of the Joint Intelligence Organisation at the Cabinet Office until his death in February 2019. Before that, from 2007 until 2015 Farr was the Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) at the United Kingdom's Home Office.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence on foreign nationals in support of its Five Eyes partners. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
The Council of Military Education Committees of the Universities of the United Kingdom (COMEC) represents the interests of Military Education Committees in negotiations with Defence and the Armed Forces over policy development in officer training, the University Service Units and the Reserve Forces. COMEC organizes an Annual Conference, publishes Occasional Papers and awards a Prize to the Officer Cadet who demonstrates outstanding achievement in leadership through military expertise, public service commitment and Service Unit activities.
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