Alice Perkins

For the American writer, teacher and suffragist, see Alice Jane Gray Perkins.

Alice Perkins at Financial Times 125th Anniversary Party, London, in June 2013

Alice Elizabeth Perkins, CB (born 24 May 1949) is a former British civil servant. She was appointed in July 2011 as the chairman of Post Office Ltd., a UK state-owned limited company, to lead the board following the separation of the Post Office from the Royal Mail under the Postal Services Act 2011.

She is an executive coach and a partner in the coaching practice of the JCA Group, and has been an external member of the council of the University of Oxford since 2006. She is a member of the Business Advisory Council of the Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford.

Education

Born in Hampstead, Perkins was privately educated at North London Collegiate School for Girls, an independent school in northeast London, followed by St Anne's College at the University of Oxford, from which she graduated in Modern History in 1971.

Life and career

Perkins joined the Civil Service in 1971. The early years of her career were spent in the Department of Health and Social Security. In 1993, she moved to the Treasury as Director of Public Spending, where her priorities were defence, the intelligence agencies, aid, Foreign Office and agriculture spending. In 1998, she returned to the Department of Health as Director General for Corporate Management responsible for administration of the Department. In 2001, Perkins moved to the Cabinet Office to work as Director General, Corporate Development Group, responsible for human resources across government, top appointments and civil service reform, reporting direct to the Cabinet Secretary. She left the civil service in 2005.

In early 2006, Perkins joined the board of the airports operator BAA plc, until its take-over by the Spanish firm Ferrovial later the same year. She has also served as a non-executive director on the board of Littlewoods (1997–2001) and TNS (the global market information company) where she was also chair of the Remuneration Committee from 2005 until its takeover by WPP in 2008.

Perkins has been married to Jack Straw since 1978. They have two adult children, Will and Charlotte. In 2002, she was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).

Perkins was chairman of the Post Office during a critical period of the British Post Office scandal, chairing a Post Office sub-committee, codenamed "Project Sparrow", which in April 2014 decided to sack forensic accountants who had found bugs in the Horizon IT system. This decision was taken with the full knowledge of the government.

The BBC announced that Perkins would be joining the BBC Executive Board as a non-executive director from 1 April 2014; Brian McBride finished his term as a non-executive director on the same day.

The independent forensic accountants Second Sight played a key role in exposing the scandal, finding flaws in the Horizon computer system which generated false evidence of cash shortfalls at sub-post offices, leading to wrongful prosecutions of sub-postmasters.

Hundreds of sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted after faulty computer software calculated money was missing from post office branches. Many went to prison and some took their own lives because of the action taken against them by the Post Office.