Cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill has been appointed president of the Charity for Civil Servants, it has announced, while Department for Work and Pensions permanent secretary Peter Schofield will lead the organisation’s board.
Sedwill succeeds the late Jeremy Heywood, also his predecessor as cabinet secretary, as president of the organisation – the principal organisational charity for the UK’s more than two million current and former civil servants.
Schofield will take over as chair from Dame Sue Owen, who retired last month.
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Sedwill said he welcomed the opportunity to work with the charity as it supports civil servants who “work tirelessly to deliver the policy agenda of government, including Brexit – the largest peacetime task the civil service has ever faced”.
The charity provides financial assistance, money advice, counselling and other services for officials, as well as those who have retired or otherwise left the civil service.
The charity said civil servants had approached it for help 48,000 times last year – more than three times the 15,000 requests for help it received two years earlier in 2016. It has so far delivered mental health and wellbeing support on 31,000 individual occasions since launching its mental health campaign last October.
It also paid out £2.2m to alleviate financial need in 2018.
Schofield commented: “The charity plays an increasingly important part in the wellbeing of so many people and I am looking forward to joining the Board and the team at the Charity to help support them with this vital work.”