The new head of the Northern Ireland civil service has been named. Mr Nigel Hamilton, currently the permanent secretary at the Department of Regional Development at Stormont headed by Mr Peter Robinson, will take over from civil service chief Mr Gerry Loughran when he retires on September 30th.
Mr Hamilton's appointment was announced yesterday at Stormont. He is 54, married with two sons, and has been a civil servant since 1970, when he joined from Queen's University, Belfast.
A former permanent secretary at the Department of Education, he also worked in the Department of the Environment on transport, roads, water, housing and local government issues.
He served as the first director of the Making Belfast Work project and was involved in the development of community relations policies.
Mr Hamilton studied at the Management College in Henley and the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia in the US. Mr Robinson welcomed Mr Hamilton's appointment and predicted he would be a huge success.