Moving on

Dame Sue Owen is stepping down as Permanent Secretary at the DCMS, aged 63. She's been with the department since 2013.

Sue's heritage is Liverpool; her grandfather was a ship's carpenter from Bootle, her father's ashes form part of the pitch at Goodison Park; and she's kept a special eye on cultural projects in the city, including the Philharmonic working in schools in West Everton. Pity the DCMS can't stop councils cutting that sort of learning...

She went to school at Lady Eleanor Holles in Hampton, and then to Newnham College Cambridge. Then followed research in economics (women in the labour market) at Cardiff University, before a move to the Civil Service. She worked on the introduction of paternity leave, and helped devise the five tests that stopped us joining the Euro. Her role in the Osborne/Whittingdale assault on the BBC in Charter Renewal is a mystery.

She can look forward to an end to the 45-minute commute from her villa just north of Crystal Palace, where she lives with sociologist Martyn Albrow.