Bob Kerslake – Wikipedia

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British retired senior civil servant

Robert Walter Kerslake, Baron Kerslake, FAcSS (born 28 February 1955) is a British retired senior civil servant. He was the Head of the Home Civil Service, after the retirement of the former holder, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell on 31 December 2011 until September 2014.[1]

He continued to be Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government.[2] In December 2014 he was appointed as the Chair of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to begin in June 2015,[3] and from July 2018 chaired the UK2070 Commission focusing on city and regional inequalities in the UK.[4]

He was introduced as a Crossbench life peer in the House of Lords on 17 March 2015.[5]

Table of Contents

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Early life[edit]

Kerslake was born on 28 February 1955.[6] He is originally from Bath, Somerset, and attended The Blue School, Wells.[7] He graduated with a first class degree in Mathematics from the University of Warwick, where he was also General Secretary of the students’ union.[8]

Kerslake qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and went on to hold a number of posts with councils in London before becoming Chief Executive of the London Borough of Hounslow. He then moved to Sheffield to take up the post of Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council in 1997. From 2008–10 he was Chief Executive of the Homes and Communities Agency; and in September 2010 Kerslake was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government.[9] In December 2014 he was appointed as the Chair of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to begin in June 2015.[3]

In October 2016, Kerslake became Chair of the Board of Governors at Sheffield Hallam University.[10] In December 2017, he resigned as Chair of King’s College Hospital Trust in protest at what he described as “dire NHS funding problems”, and calling for “a fundamental rethink (of)… the way that the NHS is funded and organised”.[11] Shortly after, reports surfaced that he had been asked to resign by the chair of NHS Improvement two days previously owing to the trust’s “poor financial performance”.[12]

Kerslake told Times Radio he believes reappointing Suella Braverman as Home Secretary was a “potential bomb” for the government. Kerslake stated “I think it’s the first mistake by Rishi Sunak. Firstly, because somebody breaches the code in this way, and then seems to escape any real challenge and punishment, it says to others, well, maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe we can ignore it as well? Secondly, I think she seems to be a serial leaker from all we can establish. And so she has leaked once, there’s every chance she might do it again. And that will be bad news, I think, for Rishi Sunak. My honest advice to him would be to get on and fill his ethics adviser, as it’s often called, as quickly as possible.”[13]

Honours[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “Sir Bob Kerslake”. Government Digital Service. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  2. ^ “New Civil Service boss announced”. BBC News. 15 November 2011.
  3. ^ a b Kerslake wins top NHS job, lgcplus.com; accessed 11 June 2015.
  4. ^ “Government must ‘go big or go home’ to tackle widening regional inequality in UK, report warns”. Independent. 27 February 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  5. ^ “Lord Kerslake”. UK Parliament. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  6. ^ “Kerslake, Baron, (Robert Walter Kerslake) (born 28 Feb. 1955)”. Who’s Who 2021. Oxford University Press. 1 December 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  7. ^ Trim, Liam (9 May 2017). “50 famous people who went to school in Somerset and Dorset”. somersetlive.
  8. ^ a b “Summer 2012 Honorary Graduates (full list)”. University of Warwick. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2012.
  9. ^ “Sir Bob Kerslake Biography”. gov.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  10. ^ “Members of the Board of Governors”. Sheffield Hallam University website. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  11. ^ Kerslake, Bob (10 December 2017). “I’m quitting as a hospital boss: dire NHS funding problems give me no choice”. The Guardian.
  12. ^ Hughes, Laura; Boyle, Danny (11 December 2017). “Lord Kerslake was ‘asked to resign’ as NHS trust chairman two days before he quit”. The Daily Telegraph.
  13. ^ Labour demand answers to Suella Braverman’s ‘growth visa’ leak reports The Guardian
  14. ^ The innovators, The Guardian, 10 September 2003. Retrieved 28 May 2010
  15. ^ Honorary awards – archive Archived 23 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine, SHU. Retrieved 28 May 2010
  16. ^ Council chief receives knighthood, BBC News, 31 December 2004. Retrieved 28 May 2010
  17. ^ “No. 57509”. The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2004. p. 1.
  18. ^ “No. 57737”. The London Gazette. 23 August 2005. p. 10898.
  19. ^ “Peerage for Sir Bob Kerslake”. Press release. Prime Minister’s Office. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
  20. ^ “No. 61177”. The London Gazette. 23 March 2015. p. 5242.
  21. ^ “New Fellows Announced”. Academy of Social Sciences. March 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2017.

External links[edit]


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