In recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of Facebook posts making claims about Sir Robert Devereux KCB, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
These posts appear very similar to ones we’ve seen and written about in both 2019 and 2024, and are missing some context.
The posts shared recently say Sir Robert is the “civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67” and that “he’s the secretary for the Department for Works [sic] and Pensions”. It also says that he “is retiring at 61 with a £1.8 million pension pot. He will receive £85,000 a year and a lump sum of £245,000”.
In fact, Sir Robert left this particular role over seven years ago, in January 2018.
It’s true that, by the end of March 2017, Sir Robert had accrued a pension of £80,000-£85,000 a year, plus a £240,000-£245,000 lump sum on retirement, according to the DWP annual report and accounts for 2016/17. At the time, the cash equivalent transfer value was around £1.8 million.
While the figures regarding his pension allocation appear to be broadly correct up to 2016/17, the 2017/18 DWP annual report and accounts didn’t include figures for his accrued pension. The report said that Sir Robert “opted out of PCSPS [the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme] from 31 March 2012” and “as such there is no requirement to disclose his pension values”.
Sir Robert retired from the civil service during that financial year, in January 2018, on his 61st birthday. People aged over 55 who opt out of their pension schemes are entitled to access money that was invested in it.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Sir Robert has worked for an American cloud-based software company, Salesforce, since September 2019.
Sir Robert was the permanent secretary of DWP. A permanent secretary is the “most senior civil servant in a department”, but, crucially, permanent secretaries (and other civil servants) do not themselves make policy decisions, such as whether to raise the state pension age. They help the government of the day develop and implement policy, but it is ministers who decide which policies to introduce.
Sir Robert became the permanent secretary of DWP in 2011. As we’ve explained before, while he did oversee DWP during the time that planned increases to the state pension age were implemented and accelerated, he wasn’t part of the department when the plan was initially put forward and he himself didn’t make the final decision on the increase. The pension changes were considered and approved by both Houses of Parliament.