The Permanent Under-Secretary of State: A Brief History of the Office and its Holders

'From my long years of previous service in the Foreign Office I knew what was in store for me and, like any athlete, went into training. I gave up smoking and drinking, went to parties as little as I could and took a brisk walk through the park to the office every morning. Only so was I able to last the course.'
Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick's thoughts on taking up his position as PUS, 1959

'You can't just sit in that big office on the ground floor of the Foreign Office and run the diplomatic service without actually going out into the field and seeing what conditions are like.'
Sir Michael Palliser, 1999

'There were moments when I was overcome with complete terror at the whole idea of doing it.'
Lord Gillmore's recollections on becoming PUS, 1996

'The job varies with the guy in this room, and it varies depending on the person occupying the Secretary of State's office upstairs. The job of Permanent Secretary is a mixture of policy and administration, but in my view it has to have considerable policy content.'
Sir John Kerr, 2000

'I have arrived here early to-day [11.45 a.m.] having an appointment at the Home Office - and I have been ringing in vain for an Office Keeper.'
Sir Julian Pauncefote to the Chief Clerk, 1887

'Can't that man realise that long after he has gone home in his Rolls-Royce, I have to catch a No.11 bus for Elm-Park Road and sup off sardines or cold sausages before dealing with the evening's telegrams.'
Sir Eyre Crowe on Lord Curzon, c.1919-1924

'Too many people are staying too late in the Office. To do so is not a virtue. The most effective officers are not necessarily those who leave the office last.'
Lord Gillmore, 1992

'Vacancies are of rare occurrence and a Foreign Office Clerk is lucky if he obtains a Senior Clerkship of £700 a year in twenty years.'
Lord Tenterden, 1877

'If you do not have sufficient people to do the job, those whose responsibility it is will either do the work inadequately or will work excessively long hours in trying to do it adequately, with the risks of mistakes being made.'
Sir John Coles, 2000

'The recruitment numbers are spectacular, with 100 applicants for every place; and the head-hunters report that we are currently the No.1 career of choice for final year students in British universities'.
Sir John Kerr, 2002

'Red Tape in the Public Offices, like drill in an army, is only the means to an end. It is the method by which a huge machine is made to move - rather ponderously - but steadily and without confusion. It is our duty to make ourselves masters of it, in order that the directions of our chiefs may be carried out properly in their details.'
Sir Thomas Sanderson, 1891

'Although, ideally speaking, everything should be 'down on paper' and easily traceable – filed and indexed, that is, with ample cross-references – the actual manipulation of so much paper is no easy task.'
Lord Strang, 1955

'It's fine to make brilliant policy, but if you have no means to carry it out, or can't produce the means, or don't know how the means can be extracted from the system, then you're whistling a bit in the dark.'
Lord Gillmore, 1996

'I confess I dislike the telegraph very much. In the first place nothing is sufficiently explained by it. It tempts hasty decision. It is an unsatisfactory record for it gives no reason.'
Edmund Hammond, 1858

'You cannot invent a machine into which documents can be put at one end and conclusions ground at the other by turning a handle. If such a machine were possible, it would be swept away by popular indignation. Every system of government, however perfect in theory - and ours lays no claim to theoretical perfection - must depend mainly for its success on the possession and exercise by its employés not merely of industry and integrity, but also of intelligence, sympathy, and good broad common sense.'
Sir Thomas Sanderson, 1891

'A philosopher who strayed into Whitehall. He knew all the answers; when politicians did not want to hear them he went out to lunch.'
Sir Robert Vansittart on Sir Orme Sargent, 1958

'I will not allow any more charwomen, neither will I allow any of the rooms in the Office except those of the resident clerk's servants to be entered by them on any account. They must be confined to cleaning passages, corridors, staircases, and front doors, i.e. under the Arches, in the Court, and in the Park, also in the area and steps.'
Edmund Hammond, 1868

'There is no career in the world in which a man's work is so much shared by a woman as is a married diplomat's by his wife…There are far more opportunities for women who are in the diplomatic service in this sense, than there ever can be for those who might enter it alone.'
Lord Tyrrell, 1933

'If asked what pleases me most in the record of the last few years, I think I'd say females, Firecrest and foresight. I've been lucky enough to be at this desk as a brilliant generation of women break through to the senior ranks: in 1996 there were 3 women Heads of Mission, there are 16 now, with 9 more already appointed. And it really does a make difference: not just to how we're perceived, but also to how well we work.'
Sir John Kerr, 2001

'When an abuse has become an use by prescription, it is not quite fair, nor is it wise, to up with the club and knock it down. Smoking at [the ] F.O. is in this category; and we must deal gently with those who have had their long allowed enjoyment suddenly cut off, and who shew some temper at the prohibition.'
Henry Addington's clash with the Chief Clerk in efforts to enforce a ban on smoking in the Office, 1846

'I became 'chain-smoking John Kerr'. It didn't do me any harm, politically or diplomatically.'
Sir John Kerr, 2000

'My years as Permanent Under-Secretary were the happiest years of a happy career: and yet I will confess that of all those days perhaps the happiest was that on which I laid down my charge.'
Lord Strang, 1956

'When I retired from the service people used to ask me, did I miss the Foreign Office, I said, it depends on what you mean, if you mean, do I miss one box every night and two boxes at weekends the answer is absolutely not for one second, but if you mean, do I miss my friends and the people I knew and so on, the answer is yes.'
Sir Michael Palliser, 1999