Bob Kerslake Keynote Speaker

Bob Kerslake is a British 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 until the 2014 Cabinet Reshuffle on 15 July 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. He was introduced as a Crossbench life peer in the House of Lords on 19 March 2015.

Bob Kerslake graduated with a first class degree in Mathematics from the University of Warwick, where he was also secretary of the students’ union.

He qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute 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 he became Chair of the Board of Governors at Sheffield Hallam University.