HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE : Treasury Appoints Former Local Authority Chief Executive to Public Services Directorate [February 2000]

The press release issued by HM Treasury on 14 February 2000.

Lucy de Groot has been appointed as a new Deputy Director in the Treasury’s Public Services Directorate and becomes the first person to be appointed to a Treasury post of this kind from outside the civil service.

Currently working for the Audit Commission, Lucy de Groot, 48, was previously Chief Executive of Bristol City Council. She brings with her wide experience of local government and delivery of public services.

The main objective of the Public Services Directorate is to improve the quality and cost effectiveness of public services while keeping within the Government’s fiscal plans.

Amongst Ms de Groot’s initial tasks will be to focus on the Spending Review which will set the Government’s spending plans for the years 2001-04, together with clear objectives and targets for all departments and cross-departmental programmes.

Ms de Groot will be managing the teams dealing with education, housing, urban policy and social exclusion, transport, culture, rural and agriculture policy, the environment, defence and foreign affairs.

Ms de Groot has been working at the Audit Commission on a temporary basis with the new Best Value Inspectorate. She was appointed as the Chief Executive of Bristol City Council in 1995 in the lead up to the local government reorganisation. She has extensive experience in the management of public services and in cross-sectoral partnerships.

Prior to her appointment as Chief Executive, Ms de Groot was the Head of Policy in Bristol City Council and the London Borough of Lewisham. Ms de Groot has also worked in a number of not-for profit organisations dealing with adult education, housing, employment and economic development.

A graduate of Oxford University and the London School of Economics, she has been a non-Executive Director on the Board of Employment Service since the summer of 1998.

She takes up her post at the Treasury on 13 March.