Background
Hill was born in Bradford in 1960 and educated at Street Anthony’s School and Street Joseph’s College, Bradford, and at Girton College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a degree in Geography.
civil servant Permanent Secretary
Hill was born in Bradford in 1960 and educated at Street Anthony’s School and Street Joseph’s College, Bradford, and at Girton College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a degree in Geography.
She was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2001 New Year Honours List. Hill joined the Greater London Council (Greater London Council) in 1981, where she worked on transport planning policy. When the Greater London Council was abolished in 1986, she moved to the Inner London Education Authority and then joined the Department of Transport (later the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and then Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions) in 1988.
Between 2005 to 2007, she was Regional Director at the Government Office for the South West before returning to what was now the Department for Transport.
She was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in March 2011. Her appointment brought the number of female permanent secretaries to eight of the 16 government departments for the first time.
She stepped down as Permanent Secretary in the summer of 2015.