DfT Permanent Secretary Bernadette Kelly to step down this summer

Dame Bernadette Kelly is to retire from her position as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport in June.

Kelly has been at the DfT for almost ten years, acting as Director General, Rail Group from September 2015-April 2017, when she moved to her current role.

A spokesman said: “Bernadette Kelly has ably led the Department for Transport’s civil servants for eight years, helping numerous Transport Secretaries during this time, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is proud of the work that she has done to help support a modern transport network delivering for the people of the UK.”

Kelly joined the Civil Service after graduating. Her career has included helping to establish the Competition and Markets Authority, as well as spells in the Department for Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, and the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit.

Prior to joining the DfT, she was a Director General at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from April 2010.

Her time as the DfT’s most senior civil servant has been dominated by HS2 and rail reform.

HS2 was the subject of her most recent appearance before a House of Commons committee, when she gave evidence at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

During this, she admitted that the DfT and HS2 Ltd did not have an agreed cost estimate for Phase 1, something she acknowledged was “unacceptable”.

She told the PAC: “We have to break the cycle of cost escalation on this programme once and for all.”

In February, PAC published its report (HS2: Update following the Northern leg cancellation), in which MPs heavily criticised the DfT for failing to keep oversight and financial control of the project.

Since then, Kelly has said the HS2 reset means the revised business case will be delayed until early 2026.

On the subject of rail reform, Kelly had wanted the DfT to become less involved in operational matters on the railway.

Speaking at Rail Live in 2019, she said: “When Whitehall is so deeply immersed in the minutiae of delivery, it stifles innovation we would normally expect the private sector to provide, and disempowers people outside government who are paid to do the same work, while also undermining the accountability of the industry to passengers.”

However, she said the government “must continue to be responsible for key strategic decisions”, which includes the amount of affordable public investment and how legislative and regulatory framework should evolve to serve the best interests of passengers, freight, wider economy and public.

Since July 2024, the DfT has been overseeing the Labour government’s rail reform, which includes bringing passenger operations back into public control and the consultation into the creation of Great British Railways.

Kelly, who was born and raised in Birmingham, was awarded a Damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022, 12 years after she was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath