Civil Servant head receives peerage
Sir Andrew Turnbull has received a life peerage on retiring from the position of cabinet secretary – UK’s civil service head.
Sir Andrew was appointed to the post in September 2002. He retires at the end of the month.
He read economics at Cambridge, graduating in 1968. After a spell working as an economist for the Zambian government he joined the Treasury in 1970. From that point he rose through the ranks of the civil service, becoming permanent secretary to the Treasury in 1998.
In his farewell speech he warned planned laws designed to protect the neutrality of the civil service could actually do harm, and complained that the branding of civil servants as “bureaucrats” was offensive and inaccurate.
Sir Andrew will be replaced by Sir Gus O’Donnell, currently the permanent secretary at the Treasury. Sir Gus had previously served as press secretary to former Tory prime minister John Major.
