Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many (a) Permanent Secretaries and (b) Cabinet Secretaries have left their posts in each of the last 15 years.

Lord Turnbull served as Cabinet Secretary from 2002 to 2005, Lord O'Donnell from 2005 to 2011, Lord Heywood of Whitehall from 2011 to 2018, and Sir Mark Sedwill from 2018.

Over the last fifteen years various permanent secretaries have left their posts including to other roles; some held more than one role during this period.

In 2014 the Coalition Government agreed that all new Permanent Secretaries (SCS4-level appointments) would be made on the basis of a 5 year fixed tenure, and that there would be no automatic presumption in favour of renewal.

The table below relates only to substantive first and second permanent secretaries; it does not include Directors General assigned on a short-term basis to cover temporary vacancies. It therefore includes the permanent secretary of the Department of Energy and Climate Change who left during the time while the Member for Kingston and Surbiton was Secretary of State, but not an official who left having filled the role on a temporary basis. Members of the Diplomatic Service, other than the Permanent Secretary to FCO, are also not included.