Stephens, whose civil service career began at the NIO in 1983, told CSW last week – on his second day in the role – that the office “feels like home”, adding: “It’s great to be back”.
On first joining the civil service Fast Stream, Stephens recalled, he elected to work on Northern Ireland because the Troubles “seemed to me a really important issue, and I wanted to see if I could help make things better”. He was the only fast streamer to choose to work on the topic.
After 15 years at the NIO, he held various roles in the Cabinet Office and Treasury before becoming permanent secretary of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2006. He left the department in July 2013.
Prior to his departure, there were anonymous briefings against him. Asked whether relationships between ministers and civil servants have changed since he left DCMS, he said: “There is always a lot of froth around that. Relationships have always gone up and down.”
Before re-joining the NIO, Stephens went to the Treasury to lead a “special project looking at how to control public sector pay as part of the preparation for the next spending review in 2015,” he said.