After over five years as permanent secretary of the Department for International Development (DFID), Sir Suma Chakrabarti is swapping the challenges of extreme poverty and overseas aid for that of offender management, youth justice, the judicial system and constitutional reform.

Chakrabarti’s move to the Ministry of Justice, however, should perhaps come as little surprise. Having headed up DFID since February 2002, he is the longest-serving of the current batch of permanent secretaries, and may well have felt it was time for a fresh challenge. But while he is moving on, he leaves behind a department transformed. Not only did it receive the highest marks of any government organisation in its capability review, its policy portfolio has rocketed up the agenda, and, unlike many other departments, it received a substantial boost in programme resources from the recent Comprehensive Spending Review.

Chakrabarti, then, can look back with a fair measure of satisfaction about his department’s accomplishments, but he is keen to stress that significant challenges remain. “We’ve had a very good year but there are big tests ahead,” he says. “For example, while our profile is going up, our administration budget is going down. So we’re having to make several difficult choices about the number of programmes we have and how we run them.”

His comments preceded the publication of a report from the Commons international development committee, which warned that additional money for international development may be wasted because of staff cuts. DFID is also set to reduce the number of domestic and overseas posts by around 17 per cent by March 2008, down from more than 3,000 staff in 2004. “Further staff cuts are coming at a time when the department is increasingly focusing on the poorest countries, which are often fragile states,” commented committee chairman Malcolm Bruce. “These are countries where development assistance is needed most and where the potential for poverty reduction is greatest. But work in such environments is much more resource-intensive, in terms of both money and people, and therefore expensive. DFID will need to make some difficult decisions about where its priorities lie.”

Chakrabarti is well aware that his successor will have some tricky issues to balance. “We’ve managed to achieve our headcount targets but at the same time we have to make sure that the funding increase is spent well and for that we have the staff to do the analysis, gather the evidence and so on,” he says. “There is no easy solution.”

The government established DFID in 1997, with responsibility for managing the UK’s aid budget and most aspects of UK international development policy. Its aim is to reduce poverty in poor countries by helping to achieve the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Asked about DFID’s achievements in 2007, Sir Suma says he’s been broadly pleased with the way things have turned out. “This was recognised by the government in the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement – which we did well in, given the fiscal situation generally,” he adds. “This was in recognition that we are making progress on our objectives. The key things that I’d like to highlight is that yet again Africa grew faster than the world economy – something like the sixth or seventh year in a row. This hasn’t happened since the 1960s and it’s not all due to booming commodity prices and Chinese demand, a lot of it is to do with policy reform and better governance in Africa, which DFID has been at the heart of.”

However, delivery of the MDGs remains the main focus of the department’s work. The goals, which cover targets such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, and improving maternal health, aim to be met by 2015. Some significant progress is being made towards meeting some of the targets in many developing countries. But in many cases progress is patchy, too slow or non-existent.

“I think the MDG that I would most like to highlight as progress is education,” observes Chakrabarti. “DFID under this government has been spending a lot more on education, on primary education in particular, concentrating on getting more kids to school. We’ve had extraordinary success in places like India, where the numbers have dropped sharply in terms of kids out of school. And the gender ratios – girls to boys in school – have gone up to about 95 per cent. These are outcomes which the public here will understand.

“And the reduction for under-five mortality rates for girls and boys is going well. Poverty rates generally, and in South Asia in particular, are improving. Everyone talks about India and China but other countries in Asia are doing well too, which is very good news. Of the other MDGs the ones to pick out are things like TB protection and treatment. The trends are all going in the right direction this year. Most of the credit rightly belongs to the developing countries. But since DFID is one of the main financiers for these programmes, part of the progress can certainly be attributed to our efforts.”

However, some issues remain of concern, he adds, pinpointing maternal mortality as one that is causing difficulties. “This is a significant problem in both Asia and Africa,” he says. “It’s got a lot to do with the place of women in societies. The cultural issues aren’t easily solvable. We have taken a view that we have to work more systematically on gender issues in the organisation than we’ve been doing in the recent past.”

And, with a continent as vast as Africa, does he agree there is always more to do? “Yes, there is. But I do think the public image of Africa, and of what is actually happening on the ground, are now quite far apart, and this worries me. The public’s view of Africa is now out of date – it’s all Darfur or Zimbabwe. But actually, when it comes to major ongoing conflict and appalling governance, it is just Somalia, Darfur and Zimbabwe – the rest of Africa is doing much better.

It’s astonishing. If you go to Mozambique and Tanzania, extraordinary progress is being made. Rwanda has emerged from genocide and is now recognised as a great turnaround story. And Ghana will soon reach middle-income status, and will no longer be needing large amounts of aid. So there are lots of countries which are taking off and I just think we, and they, need to do a better job communicating this progress.”

Turning to the internal challenges faced by the department this year, DFID was heavily affected by the arrival of the new government. Not only did it get a new secretary of state [Douglas Alexander replacing Hilary Benn] but Gordon Brown also doubled its number of ministers to four – including his close ally from the Treasury, Shriti Vadera. Chakrabarti, to his credit, admits that the department struggled initially to adapt to these changes. “I think, to be honest it was a stuttering performance because we weren’t used to having a doubling of ministers overnight,” he concedes. “Then we had to settle down to understand how each of our ministers worked compared to our previous ministerial team – what they wanted and what they required, their approach and their take on issues – all this was bound to be different to what had happened previously. So it’s taken three or four months to get used to that but I think we are now at a point where there is a much closer understanding of what the department can deliver, and also of what we can expect from ministers.”

And in terms of their approach to policy, “I think it’s quite interesting that the new ministers have put a much greater emphasis on economic growth and climate change. This is welcome, as the department felt that perhaps we hadn’t talked enough about those issues in the past.” This, of course, will prompt more cross-Whitehall work. “We work very closely with Defra and the Foreign Office on climate change. We are focusing on the international elements of climate change rather than the UK elements. Where DFID is leading the way for the whole government is trying to get the World Bank to play a much bigger role on climate change.”

As for other challenges for next year, Chakrabarti goes on to cite three main priorities for the next permanent secretary to tackle. “DFID is now recognised as one of the very best development organisations around – but how much is the department doing to change the international system so that the overall system has a more beneficial impact on development?” he asks. “Are we doing enough? Probably not. So there is a whole issue about getting the international system to do better.

“A second issue is around measures of Britain’s development impact. If you just measure what DFID does, then you get a very positive story. But if you measure all of the policies across the UK government and their impact on developing countries, which is what an influential American thinktank, called the Centre for Global Development does, then Britain comes ninth in their league table. We’ve moved up from eleventh to ninth in the last year but this tells us there is still a lot to do within the government as a whole and DFID ought to be playing a central role. We’ve now got joint public service agreements and we will try to use these to help change policies in some of those areas.

“The third challenge is around communications. DFID is very well known abroad, but less so in the UK beyond the Westminster Village. It can’t and shouldn’t stay this way. I’d like to see DFID in a position where in ten years’ time the department is as well known as the BBC or the NHS.” Surely this might be influenced by the fact that DFID is a relatively young department? “Yes but it’s interesting that in other countries, in Scandinavia or the Netherlands for example, the public is much more aware of what the government is doing in terms of development – much more so than the public is in the UK.”

He goes on to reject the suggestion that DFID’s relatively low profile is impacted by being located in discreet offices in Victoria – well away from the grandeur of the departments of state in Whitehall.

“I don’t think it’s to do with office location. There is an active debate about branding. Until now, the government has had a view that DFID shouldn’t do much branding about what the department does, at home or abroad. It is right that we are now asking the question whether this approach should change with regard to the UK domestic audience. In the past we rather left it to the NGOs to talk about development to the British public. So the whole development awareness function needs to be stepped up and much more DFID-ised.”

But for Chakrabarti, such priorities will now be the responsibility of his successor. Sir Suma, however, is confident it will continue to deliver. “Of course, there are challenges ahead, but I am confident DFID will meet these head on and continue its success. And, although I’m moving to a different field, I will remain a strong supporter of DFID and its work from my new vantage point."

Priorities for the year ahead

1. More cross-Whitehall work
DFID’s new team of ministers is focusing more on climate change and economic growth, says Sir Suma, adding that this will prompt more work with other departments. “This is welcome, as the department felt that perhaps we hadn’t talked enough about those issues in the past,” he says. “We work very closely with Defra and the Foreign Office on climate change. We are focusing on the international elements of climate change rather than the UK elements. Where DFID is leading the way for the whole government is trying to get the World Bank to play a much bigger role on climate change.”

2. International system
DFID will next year be working on improving the international system in order to boost aid and development, predicts Sir Suma. “DFID is now recognised as one of the very best development organisations around, but how much is the department doing to change the international system so that the overall system has a more beneficial impact on development?” he asks. “Are we doing enough? Probably not. So there is a whole issue about getting the international system to do better.”

3. Britain’s development impact
Chakrabarti says that while DFID’s impact is well respected, Britain as a whole needs to do better. “If you measure all of the policies across the UK government and their impact on developing countries, which is what an influential American thinktank, called the Centre for Global Development does, then Britain comes ninth in their league table,” he adds. “We’ve moved up from eleventh to ninth in the last year but this tells us there is still a lot to do within the government as a whole, and DFID ought to be playing a central role. We’ve now got joint public service agreements and we will try to use these to help change policies in some of those areas.

4. Communications
DFID needs to boost its profile, says Chakrabarti. “DFID is very well known abroad, but less so in the UK beyond the Westminster Village,” he points out. “It can’t and shouldn’t stay this way. I’d like to see DFID in a position where in ten years’ time the department is as well known as the BBC or the NHS.”