British retired senior civil servant

Robert Walter Kerslake, Baron Kerslake, FAcSS (born 28 February 1955) is a British retired senior civil servant. He was the Head of the Home Civil Service, after the retirement of the former holder, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell on 31 December 2011 until September 2014.

He continued to be Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government. In December 2014 he was appointed as the Chair of King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to begin in June 2015, and from July 2018 chaired the UK2070 Commission focusing on city and regional inequalities in the UK.

He was introduced as a Crossbench life peer in the House of Lords on 17 March 2015.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Career
• 3 Honours
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Early life

Kerslake was born on 28 February 1955. He is originally from Bath, Somerset, and attended The Blue School, Wells. He graduated with a first cl* degree in Mathematics from the University of Warwick, where he was also General Secretary of the students' union.

Career

Kerslake qualified as a member of the Chartered Ins*ute of Public Finance and Accountancy and went on to hold a number of posts with councils in London before becoming Chief Executive of the London Borough of Hounslow. He then moved to Sheffield to take up the post of Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council in 1997. From 2008–10 he was Chief Executive of the Homes and Communities Agency; and in September 2010 Kerslake was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government. In December 2014 he was appointed as the Chair of King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to begin in June 2015.

In October 2016, Kerslake became Chair of the Board of Governors at Sheffield Hallam University. In December 2017, he resigned as Chair of King's College Hospital Trust in protest at what he described as "dire NHS funding problems", and calling for "a fundamental rethink (of)... the way that the NHS is funded and organised". Shortly after, reports surfaced that he had been asked to resign by the chair of NHS Improvement two days previously owing to the trust's "poor financial performance".

Honours

• In 2003, Kerslake was named in a Guardian list of the 100 most influential people in the public sector.
• In 2004, he received an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University for his "distinctive contribution to public service".
• In the 2005 New Year Honours, he was knighted "for services to Local Government".
• In 2012, he became an honorary graduate (Doctor of Law) of the University of Warwick.
• In 2015, he was made a life peer taking the *le Baron Kerslake, of Endcliffe in the City of Sheffield.
• In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

References

External links

• Kerslake's blog as Head of Civil Service
• Boom or Bust: The way forward & challenges facing the HCA featuring Sir Bob Kerslake Chief executive of Homes and Communities agency (video)
• Biography of Sir Bob Kerslake at gov.uk