Tamara Finkelstein is leaving the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after six years leading the department.
Finkelstein, who is also head of the government policy profession, will step down as permanent secretary in the summer, Defra confirmed today.
The announcement comes just months after Finkelstein was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath – one of the highest possible honours – in the 2025 New Year Honours. A statement by the Cabinet Office at the time said the perm sec had “dedicated her entire 32 year career to public service”.
She first took on the role on an interim basis in April 2019, when her predecessor, Clare Moriarty, moved to head up the now-defunct Department for Exiting the European Union. Two months later, it was announced that she would stay on permanently.
Before becoming perm sec, Finkelstein spent a year as the department’s director general for EU exit. In 2019, Defra had one of Whitehall’s biggest Brexit-related workloads, with the UK’s exit from the EU affecting 80% of its work, and the job advert for the department’s most senior civil servant said it was seeking a candidate who would be able to “respond to the outcome of EU exit negotiations, ensuring that the department and its people are equipped to operate differently as required”.
Finkelstein began her more than three-decade civil service career as a graduate, via a programme that funded master’s conversion courses for would-be economists in exchange for a couple of years at the Treasury after graduation.
