Alexis Cleveland CB

A Durham City resident and proud of it, Alexis was a senior civil servant and continues to work one day a week at HM Treasury.  She is active in public, private, voluntary and philanthropy sectors.

Having gained a BSc in Statistics and Geography from Salford University she became a Lecturer and RA in Statistics and Econometrics before joining the Civil Service as a fast stream Assistant Statistician and becoming Head of the Analytical Services Division at the DSS HQ in October 1985.

She was recruited into the Information Technology Services Agency in October 1989 to negotiate the framework agreement, targets and business plan for the launch of one of the first Next Steps Agencies in April 1990. Whilst in the ITSA she managed application development, project and support teams of up to 1000 people and an annual budget of up to £50m.

She became Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency, part of the Department of Work and Pensions, in April 2000 with responsibility to oversee its restructure into five separate businesses. At the time the BA was the largest government agency with in excess of 80,000 staff and responsible for £120bn in welfare payments.

This role was followed by Chief Executive of The Pension Service in April 2002 where she successfully delivered a new benefit, Pension Credit and a business transformation programme that reduced headcount by 50%.  Her last posts were within the Cabinet Office as Director-General for Transformational Government and Cabinet Office Management.  She also undertook adhoc projects including the Capability Review of Ministry of Defence and was part of the government team when Government took ownership of Northern Rock.

Alexis joined Council as a lay member on 1 August 2011, is a member of Finance and General Purposes Committee and is Chair of University College Council.