Philip Rutnam
Permanent Secretary of Department for Transport
What were your biggest policy and delivery challenges in 2013? How did you handle them?
If I had to pick out one thing it, would be HS2. This is the biggest infrastructure project in a generation, four or five times the size of the Olympics, and a giant undertaking. As a department, we’ve faced this challenge head on, dramatically ramping up the scale and pace of our delivery and resources. As a result, we have successfully met all the milestones on the project this year. That includes delivering a comprehensive and accessible business case for HS2, backed by careful evidence and analysis; securing Royal Assent to paving legislation; and depositing a high-quality hybrid bill with around 50,000 pages of supporting documentation.
Where have you made the most progress in implementing the Civil Service Reform Plan, and what are your reform priorities for 2014?
At the risk of sounding a little pleased with myself, I think DfT has made great progress against most of our CSR objectives! It’s a time of great change right across the public sector, but I believe that DfT is leading from the front when it comes to civil service reform. Perhaps the most satisfying success to date has been ISSC1: shorthand for the divestment of the department’s shared services, which is now up and running. The project is a great example of applying commercial skills and sound procurement principles to achieve savings and service improvements – so much so that service providers Arvato are now actively engaged in discussing service provision with a number of other departments and organisations.
What are your key challenges in the last year of the Parliament? How will you tackle them?
My main challenge will be delivering the massive investment programme set out by the government in the 2013 Spending Round. The SR2013 outcome was a tremendous vote of confidence by the government in DfT; and having led the department for just over a year and a half now, I know that confidence is not misplaced. As ever, we have to figure out how to do more with less, all while transforming our organisation in order to best deliver an unprecedented infrastructure programme. That said, change usually brings with it opportunity – in this case, the chance to deliver a transformational, multi-billion pound capital investment programme that will tackle congestion, support jobs and growth, give confidence to industry, attract inward investment, and benefit families and individuals right across the country.
What would you most like Santa to bring you this year? And what should he take away?
If I could ask for anything, I think it would have to be a ski chalet in the Alps. That and world peace, of course. As for what I’d like to have taken away… as an avid cyclist, it would have to be punctures, which are enough to ruin anyone’s day.