Robert Devereux

Who is Robert Devereux?

Robert John Devereux is a senior British civil servant who has served as the Permanent Secretary for the Department for Work and Pensions since 2011.

In 2013 it was reported Sir Jeremy Heywood told the Prime Minister that, he was concerned about the “concerted political briefing campaign” against Robert Devereux over failures in the Government’s universal credit programme. He is understood to have made clear that he did not believe Mr Devereux should be singled out for blame for the project and that responsibility also lay with Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary. He is also said to have pointed out that the public undermining a permanent secretary was harming civil service morale and was unfair because, as a government official, Mr Devereux was unable to defend himself.