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Neil's avatar

I'm afraid you've committed the cardinal sin of confusing deficit and debt.

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Edrith's avatar

That's annoying! Why do they have to start with the same letter? Corrected. :-)

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Ben Fortune's avatar

This misses the point for three reasons:

1/ This just reflects the point that the current cadre of Perm Secs is quite new. Around 12 months ago, half of perm secs had their Ks. Sir Jim Harra (HMRC), Sir Philip Barton (FCDO), Sir Crawford Falconer (DBT), Sir Alex Chisholm have all just left.

2/ EVERY Perm Sec who took up their place before 2020 (Ian Diamond, Bernadette Kelly, Peter Schofield, Chris Witty and Tamara Finkelstein and Ken McCullum) has a DBE or a K.

3/ The rule is that Permanent Secretaries get their Ks after 4 years in the job. In the old days, they weren’t on fixed term contracts. So this isn’t about perm secs not getting Ks, but about greater turnover at Perm Sec level.

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