Think of any of the big cultural events in the UK over the past four years or so, and chances are that Sue Street had a hand in them. Her tenure as permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has spanned events from the Golden Jubilee and the Commonwealth Games, to the sweeping gambling and licensing reforms, and London’s winning bid for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Yet after 5 years at DCMS and 25 in Whitehall, Street is now taking early retirement. So was it a desire for a quieter life that prompted her decision? “No not at all,” she says firmly. Indeed, it soon becomes clear that she relishes juggling a packed schedule. “The original appointment at permanent-secretary level is for four years,” she continues. “I completed four years last December. At that point I had a lot of big things done and dusted – some very successfully, some less so – but there is no desire for a quiet life at all.”

Rather, she continues, her departure reflects her absolute determination to be professional in her approach. “I was appointed for four years and when those four years were up in December, I just thought it was time for me to decide whether I wanted to move on to a different department, or out of Whitehall or whatever. For me, I thought it was time to make a change from the civil service. Now that we have won the Olympic bid and set up the structures to deliver the Games, I think it now needs somebody to lead the next phase. It will be a different department with a different focus and it makes sense to refresh the leadership skills. I also wanted to take a positive decision where I was perhaps – hopefully – leaving at the top of my game.”

But was she not tempted to run a different government department? “I certainly thought about it very hard. I think Gus [O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary] is building a very strong team around him, but this is just my dream job. Particularly with the arts, which is a great love of mine, I just felt this is the best job I will ever do and you can’t go to another department feeling this way.” Nevertheless, it is clear that she will miss working in Whitehall. “I don’t think I will miss being in the know of what’s going on behind closed doors in government,” she says. “But what I do think I will miss is running an organisation with such a big reach and such a capacity to enhance people’s lives. There is a kind of feeling of velcro-wrenching – I’m really, really going to miss it.”

David Mellor, the former Conservative cabinet minister, famously described DCMS’s predecessor, the Department of National Heritage, as the “Ministry for Fun”. Street, however, prefers not to use that description, arguing, with some justification, that its sweeping remit [“from the Tate to the Tote”] means that her department is now one of the big players in Whitehall. DCMS, after all, is responsible for government policy on the arts, sport, the National Lottery, tourism, libraries, museums and galleries, broadcasting, creative industries including film and the music industry, press freedom and regulation, licensing, gambling and the historic environment.

Less well known is its responsibility for humanitarian assistance in the event of a disaster such as the London bombings, as well as the organisation of the annual Remembrance Day Ceremony at the Cenotaph. “I think we’ve been able to bring the department much more centre-stage in terms of social policy,” she adds. Street, an Arsenal fan who says she “plays bad tennis and worse golf”, is also keen to highlight the increasing prominence given over to sport by the government, saying that it is now “contributing heavily to the public health agenda, education and even crime prevention”. And the department’s economic contribution is also very significant. “People are much more ready to recognise broadcasting, tourism and so on. Our sectors are worth about 13 per cent of GDP, and I’ve worked very hard to give us an economic focus.”

In a recent edition of Whitehall & Westminster World, Sir Robin Young, who was Street’s predecessor, said that he was always wary of the “very large chattering class” that works with and close to the department. “I had a particular need as permanent secretary there to be outward-looking and listen to the voices in that hinterland,” he said. “This is true of all departments to some degree, but it is particularly true of DCMS.”

Asked about Sir Robin’s comments, Street says that she too has always been keen to work very closely with the arts, sports and media sectors. “I felt I wanted to engage very much with the leaders of these sectors, but in the end staying as the professional civil servant is the right approach,” she says. “It’s important to remain objective and really listen. You’ve got to listen to what they want to do and try and align what they think their business is with what the government’s big priorities are. If our priority is a bigger economic contribution, with more for young people and more for local communities, you can harness those views. So I have tried to reach out a lot, and I haven’t regretted this.”

During her time in post, Street says that she deliberately hasn’t courted a high profile in the national media. “I didn’t think I needed one and didn’t think it was appropriate.” Nevertheless, when news of her impending departure was announced last April, some in the national press attempted to link her decision to go with the recent investigation into whether Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, should have told her about a £350,000 payment to her husband. Asked about this period, Street describes it, somewhat ruefully, as “very unfortunate”, before seeking to clarify what really happened. “It was the Mail on Sunday trying to make a connection with a plan I’d made absolutely clear to the cabinet secretary the previous December, and events in the secretary of state’s private life. So it was wrong, and I put out a categorical statement saying it was untrue – and it went away.”

It is clear from even a cursory glance at Street’s CV that her civil service career has involved far more than just her period at DCMS. She began in the Home Office in 1974, taking a career break between 1976 and 1982 to raise her family and work with the British Council in Bogota, Colombia. Returning to the Home Office in 1982, she worked on prevention-of-terrorism legislation and related high-security issues. Later, she directed the Top Management Programme at the Cabinet Office, an intensive development programme for top managers in the public and private sectors. This was followed by three years as a senior management consultant in the City with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, leading strategy and efficiency work with a variety of public and private sector businesses. In 1994, she was appointed to lead the government’s anti-drugs strategy at the Cabinet Office. She returned to the Home Office in 1996 as director of fire and emergency planning and was promoted to lead the criminal policy group in 1999, with wide-ranging responsibilities for criminal justice.
Street is swift to reject the idea that her principal civil service achievement is becoming a permanent secretary. “Becoming a permanent secretary is about reaching the top of a ladder,” she says. “Of course I’m honoured and delighted to have got to the top of the profession, but it’s definitely not my main achievement as a civil servant. I describe myself as a practical strategist – I like to look at the big picture, and work out what actually would make a difference.”

With this in mind, she cites her period at the Home Office when she was director of fire and emergency planning. There, with others, she looked at how cheap a smoke alarm was compared to the cost of a fire engine, and oversaw a massive fire-prevention and smoke alarm campaign that over three years reduced fire deaths in the home by half. “There are hundreds of people alive today who wouldn’t have been, and that to me is practical strategy at its best,” she says. “I certainly didn’t do it alone, but I did lead the initiative.”

Also in the Home Office, she recalls the improvements she helped implement that reduced the time between arrest and trial for young offenders. “We bucked up the whole system from beginning to end with a whole series of practical steps which went right from the time of arrest to the courts,” she explains. “This has made a difference to the chances of young people reoffending – if it is all quick and the consequences are clear, then they are less likely to reoffend. So I’m proud of this, and it was about injecting pace – which is one of Gus’s priorities too.”

In terms of the main achievement of her time at DCMS, the Olympics, obviously, takes pride of place. Although Street plays down her own significance [“I definitely wouldn’t say I was the decisive factor”] she says she is proud that her department was fit for purpose and able to support the bid effort. “We are much more professional in project-working and delivering programmes. We’ve had a lot of help from the Office of Government Commerce on this – when I came in I said every big programme, like the Commonwealth Games or the Golden Jubilee or whatever, had to go through a Gateway review. I got this from my time in consultancy – just endlessly asking ‘who does what by when’. Time, quality, cost and deliverability – this is what it comes down to.”

Street opted not to be in Singapore for the announcement. “I wanted to be with the troops here, particularly if we didn’t win,” she says. And she had no cause to regret her decision. “In the event it was the best feeling. I was in Trafalgar Square surrounded by hundreds of my staff, and we were just euphoric. Staying in London also meant I was here the next day when the bombs went off. It was two extremes – triumph and disaster – and I was proud of having a department that was ecstatic one day, and volunteering across the board the next day to do what needed to be done. They’re brilliant people.”

Street’s departure this month means that there is just one female permanent secretary left in Whitehall – Helen Ghosh at Defra. This comes despite the much-vaunted 10-point diversity plan and the cabinet secretary’s oft-stated commitment to greater variety in the senior civil service. Asked about this state of affairs, Street admits that it is a “troubling” situation.
“I spoke with the Senior Women’s Network recently and we were trying to understand how this has come about,” she adds. “I have no doubt that Gus and the senior leadership committee want a more diverse top of the civil service, but we’re not getting there yet.

Like many other senior female civil servants, Street tries to get out and about in Whitehall to talk to groups of younger women. “Many I speak to think it is not possible to be happy and fulfilled and have a top job too, but it really is,” Street says. “You’re not happy every day, and of course there are times when you’re exhausted and stressed, but I think somehow we’ve developed a mystique that you have to be super-human to be at the top of the civil service. You don’t. You have to be competent and determined, and you have to have a very good team. Usually it is a confidence issue for women, which troubles me, and I really hope it changes soon.”

Street says it is vital that the recruitment processes for permanent secretary appointments are fair and transparent. She says she hopes that her own career can help build confidence and ambition for younger women civil servants. “Many people have said to me that my departure sends out a negative signal, and all I can say is that it shouldn’t. I’m not leaving as a woman. I’m taking a personal decision for me, and I think my time in Whitehall should actually serve to encourage people. I had six years out raising my kids. I’m not someone who sacrificed everything to climb the ladder. So I would urge women to just do their job as best they can. Obviously have some ambition, but absolutely have a life outside of work and take the best decisions for your whole life, not to build a massive power base.”

It is also clear that Street has no regrets about spending four years with PwC. Consultancies, of course, are increasingly working with and for government departments and Street herself is joining Deloitte as a strategic adviser from next January. Although unions have queried the costs involved, Street says they do provide added value – but it is crucial that Whitehall knows what it wants from them. “I think the civil service has to be a far more intelligent client for consultancies,” she says. “If we are very discerning and clear about what we want, then yes, it is very healthy to buy in intellectual or operational expertise as and when you need it. I think there should be a healthy use of consultants, but with a more discerning client base, otherwise you pay too much for too little.”

Street goes on to say she picked up a lot of theoretical training in leading organisations and organisational change from her time with PwC, and this proved of benefit when becoming a permanent secretary. This, together with her experiences at the Home Office, was crucial in preparing her for the new responsibilities. “I’d been leading a very big chunk of the Home Office – hundreds and hundreds of people – at very difficult times with some very harrowing policy issues and very large budgets,” she says. “But because I moved to a department that wasn’t a million times bigger, and with some issues that were fascinating, but in a way less harrowing, I think perhaps it was a gentler move for me.”

So with her time as a civil servant drawing to a close, Street is asked for her core message to those still working in Whitehall. “I think there is nothing more fulfilling than having a role in good government,” she says. “The opportunities are immense for the future – you do have a chance to really affect people’s lives, and this is a tremendous privilege. Equally the civil service is not the only career in the world. I would encourage people to move in and out. I want people to be confident that the skills they gain inside are useful on the outside and vice versa.”

And as for her future, Street has a stimulating portfolio building up. “What I think I’ll have is two to three days a week with a private sector organisation, and then quite a lot of work with arts organisations and others where I have quite a natural affinity in an advisory capacity. So I think it will be a very good mix of all the things that really engage me and I really care about. I am remaining on the board of the National School for Government, and I remain very committed to that. I studied political philosophy a long time ago, and I’ve always felt that being part of good government is the most important contribution that one can make.”