Permanent Secretary to the Treasury


The UK Permanent Secretary to the Treasury is the most senior civil servant at HM Treasury. The post originated as that of Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in 1805; that office was given new duties and renamed in 1867 as a Permanent Secretaryship.
The position is generally regarded as the second most influential in Her Majesty's Civil Service; Andrew Turnbull and Gus O'Donnell were Permanent Secretaries to the Treasury who then became Cabinet Secretary, the most influential post.
Previous incumbents have not always maintained the political neutrality expected of civil servants; in 1909 Sir George Murray was involved in lobbying various Crossbench peers in the House of Lords to reject the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposed budget.

Assistant Secretaries to the Treasury

Since March 2009, Sir Tom Scholar had served as the Treasury's Second Permanent Secretary. The post of Head of the Government Economic Service had been held by Sir Nicholas Stern until June 2007, since when it has been jointly held by Vicky Pryce, Chief Economic Adviser and Director General of Economics at BIS, and Dave Ramsden, Managing Director, Macroeconomic and Fiscal Policy Directorate.