Profile: Scottish Government Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans

Scottish Government permanent secretary Leslie Evans - credit Scottish Government

Leslie Evans took up the post of permanent secretary to the Scottish Government in July 2015, the first woman to hold this role in Scotland and one of just 30 female permanent secretaries in the history of the UK civil service.

As the most senior Scottish civil servant and head of the civil service in Scotland, Evans is the principal policy adviser to the First Minister and secretary to the Scottish cabinet.

She is also the principal accountable officer for the Scottish Government, with a personal responsibility for the Scottish Government’s finance and for efficient use of resources.

Her role involves leading more than 5,000 civil servants who work for the Scottish Government and supporting the development, implementation and communication of Scottish Government policies.

Prior to becoming the permanent secretary, Evans was the director general for learning and justice in the Scottish Government. She joined the Scottish Government in 2000 and she has also been head of the Local Government Constitution and Governance Division, head of the Public Service Reform Group, head of tourism, culture and sport, and director of culture, external affairs and tourism.

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Born in Northern Ireland and brought up in England, Evans moved to Scotland in 1985. Before joining the civil service, she worked in local government for 20 years, for City of Edinburgh Council, Stirling Council, the London Borough of Greenwich and Sheffield City Council. She served as head of arts and entertainment and assistant director of recreation in Edinburgh, with responsibility for the capital’s theatres.

As well as being the first female permanent secretary in Scotland, Leslie Evans is not a traditional senior civil servant, having gone to a comprehensive school, High Storrs School in Sheffield, and studied music at the red brick University of Liverpool instead of Oxford or Cambridge.

Rather than having worked her way up through the civil service, she joined after devolution in 2000, when senior civil service posts were first opened up to those from outside the civil service.

Described by the Telegraph as “a senior mandarin” on announcement of her appointment, when she took up the role the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said of her: “As the new Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government, Leslie brings a vast amount of experience from across the public sector to the role.”

Evans’ predecessor, Sir Peter Housden, described her as “an outstanding public servant whose leadership, experience and impact on Scotland and the UK is widely recognised.”

But the road to this point has not been simple and it serves as a reminder of how things have moved forward for women in Scotland – and how they have not.

Speaking at the Women into Leadership Scotland conference a couple of weeks ago, Evans mentioned a few experiences from her life that illustrate the struggles for women in senior roles in the public sector.

In the late 1980s, being interviewed for a local government job by the elected members of that local authority, she was asked what her husband thought of her applying for the post. She didn’t get the job, despite strong experience.

A few years later when she was due to take maternity leave, the package was six weeks at full pay and six weeks at half pay, but the maternity leave had to start two months before the baby was due, leaving only a month afterwards, at most, to spend with the new baby even if it was born on the due date. Her son wasn’t, Evans adds.

And in 2000, when she joined the civil service, Evans was asked to try to improve the relationship between civil servants in her department and their female minister by talking to her about lipsticks.

“The 1980s and much of the 90s provided me with plenty of examples and experiences where I encountered barriers and assumptions which were just as powerful in their impact on me and my ambition,” she said, “and I certainly wasn’t alone.”

She refused to take her maternity leave at seven months and refused to talk to the government minister about make up.

Evans describes herself as an “incurable optimist” and says things are getting better, with a female first minister, a gender-balanced cabinet and executive team and 40 per cent of senior civil servants now female.

But still, she says: “Only last month I was in a meeting where it became pretty apparent that I needed to earn my place at the table in a way that others in the room apparently did not. I was the only woman there.”

Leslie Evans may have broken through the glass ceiling, but not without some pain inflicted along the way.