Permanent Secretary

Dr Andrew McCormick has been appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and takes up his new position from 1st August 2005. He was previously Second Permanent Secretary at the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) since May 2002. He joined the Civil Service in 1980 working mainly within DFP, before his appointment as Head of Finance and Strategic Planning Division at the Department of Education in 1993.

Dr McCormick returned to DFP in 1998 as Director of Central Finance Group and Treasury Officer of Accounts for Northern Ireland. When devolution took effect in 1999, Dr McCormick worked at the centre of the processes for decision making on the Programme for Government and the Budget, working closely with the Ministerial team and also the Finance and Personnel and Public Accounts Assembly Committees.

As Second Permanent Secretary at DFP, he has been involved in the programme of reinvestment and public sector reform, initiated under devolution but now led and applied by NIO Ministers.

Educated at Bangor Grammar School, University College Oxford, and Queen's University, Belfast, where he completed his doctorate on the geochemistry of the Mourne Mountain's granites in 1989.

Dr McCormick continues to keep up an interest in geology as well as enjoying music (mainly pre-1750), reading (mainly history) and hill walking.