The Permanent Secretary, in most departments officially titled the Permanent Under-secretary of State or PUS (although the full title is rarely used), is the most senior civil servant of a British Government ministry, charged with running the department on a day-to-day basis.
Permanent Secretaries (known by other names in some departments; see below) are the non-political civil service heads (and "accounting officers") or chief executives of government departments, who generally hold their position for a number of years (thus "permanent") at a ministry as distinct from the changing political Secretaries of State to whom they report and provide advice.
Read more about Permanent Secretary: History, Role, Honours, Current UK Permanent Secretaries, Outside The UK
Famous quotes containing the words permanent and/or secretary:
“...that absolutely everything beloved and cherished of the bourgeoisie, the conservative, the cowardly, and the impotent—the State, family life, secular art and science—was consciously or unconsciously hostile to the religious idea, to the Church, whose innate tendency and permanent aim was the dissolution of all existing worldly orders, and the reconstitution of society after the model of the ideal, the communistic City of God.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)