Photo: PA
Number 10 Downing Street has confirmed that Peter Hill, a senior Foreign Office civil servant and former official at the European Commission, has been appointed as the prime minister Theresa May’s principal private secretary.
Hill, who has been director of strategy at the FCO since 2013, will take up the post at the end of May, a spokesman confirmed to Civil Service World.
He will replace Simon Case, who moved to join the UK’s Permanent Representation in Brussels (UKREP) in March.
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Hill has held a number of posts in government since he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1998. These include working in the office for security and counter-terrorism in the Home Office from 2010 to 2013, a period when May was home secretary. Hill also worked on the independent Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war between 2009 and 2010, while for three years from 2006 he formed part of Peter Mandelson’s staff during the time when the former cabinet minister was the European Union’s commissioner for trade.
As PPS, Hill will head the prime minister's office. A number of previous holders of the post, including Lord Robert Armstrong, Lord Robin Butler, Lord Andrew Turnbull, and Sir Jeremy Heywood have gone on to become cabinet secretaries. Oliver Robbins, the permanent secretary of the Department for Exiting the European Union, has also held the job.