Permanent secretary, Department for International Development

What are you most proud of achieving in 2009?

Despite the downturn, I think we have managed to keep international development on the agenda. We launched a white paper which argues that, since development is key to global economic recovery, addressing climate change and promoting peace and security, we need to be investing more, not less, in reducing global poverty.

What was your most difficult decision in 2009?

The toughest decisions we make in DfID are about resource allocation – deciding between funding a really great programme to distribute bed nets in Tanzania to prevent malaria, for example, or getting more girls into school in Nepal.

Of course, we have rigorous and elaborate processes in place to help us make these decisions, globally and at the country level. We also monitor and evaluate success to make sure we are getting maximum value for money from every investment we make in poverty.

But you never have enough information, and comparisons are always difficult to make across
programmes. We do our best, but you always worry about whether you might have done better.

What challenges do you expect to face in 2010?

Obviously, an election on the horizon raises many challenges for all of us. Under every scenario, we will face huge challenges to manage with tighter budgets.

For DfID, while our programme spending to fight poverty is expected to grow, our administration budget is under serious pressure (so we will literally be delivering
much more with less).

What concrete plans do you have for cutting expenditure in 2010?

Like others, we will be looking for further efficiency gains in 2010 by streamlining our back offices, closing offices in lower-priority countries, reducing our space needs, and moving jobs out of London to our second headquarters in Scotland. We will also need to achieve
improved value for money in how we deliver poverty reduction by extracting more efficient delivery from our partners in the United Nations, the international financial institutions and from civil society.

What is your favourite national, local or family Christmas tradition?

I love my children’s anticipation of Christmas: the chocolate-fuelled countdown through the advent calendar, the letters to Father Christmas (my daughter has been preparing hers for weeks), the carrots laid out for the reindeer the night before.