Dame Helen Ghosh has been appointed as the next permanent secretary at the Home Office. Ghosh, currently permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will take up the role when Sir David Normington retires at the end of the year.

She has been permanent secretary at Defra since 2005, before that acting as director-general for corporate services and commissioner at Inland Revenue. She has also held senior posts in the Cabinet Office, and currently acts as a non-executive director on the Department for International Development’s board, and as executive director on HM Revenue & Custom’s executive committee.

Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell said Ghosh has “an outstanding record of organisational leadership” at Defra and from previous senior leadership roles, and “Her appointment will ensure the Home Office is very capably led through the significant changes ahead.”

“I would also like to thank David Normington for his excellent leadership of the Home Office over recent years,” said O’Donnell, “and for his outstanding record of public service during a highly distinguished career.”

Ghosh said: “I am very much looking forward to supporting the home secretary as she takes forward her radical policy programme, and to building on David Normington and his team’s terrific work over the past few years to ensure that the Home Office has the capability to deliver.”

Home secretary Theresa May said she was “delighted” that Ghosh would be joining the Home Office. “She has a huge amount of experience in numerous departments across Whitehall and will, I am sure, make an invaluable contribution to the department as we deliver the vital reforms that are under way. I am very much looking forward to working with her.”

Written by CSW