Sir Bill Jeffrey is a retired UK civil servant with wide experience of Government and Government’s relations with Parliament. He served in four Departments, mainly in areas involving justice, national security and constitutional issues. His early experience, in the Home Office, included the passage through Parliament in the late 1980s, in support of Ministers, of two major Criminal Justice Bills. He served twice in the central Cabinet Office, on the first occasion (between 1994 and 1998) coordinating Home and Social affairs policy and the Government’s Parliamentary business, and on the second (in 2005) as Security and Intelligence Coordinator. Between 1998 and 2002, as Political Director in the Northern Ireland Office, he was the most senior UK civil servant working on the political process in Northern Ireland. His last assignment, from which he retired in late 2010, was as Permanent Secretary (the most senior civilian and Head of the Department) at the Ministry of Defence.
Bill has worked as a GPG Associate in Iraq, both on the project with the Council of Representatives in Baghdad, where he advised on Government relations and legislation, and on supporting the Nineveh provincial authorities in developing a medium-term strategy for government.