Their name is not Susan

Ruth Hannant and Polly Payne – the new joint Chief Executives of the Office for Students – bring to the role a rich background (both together and apart) in the civil service.

Latterly (since 2021) Director General for Society, Media, and Culture (with a stint as interim permanent secretary), the pair have job shared for 14 years across multiple departments: including, notably as Director of Higher Education and Higher Education Reform at the Department for Education (and previously the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills) between 2014 and November 2017, and as joint leaders of the Corporate Finance, Business, Skills, and Innovation team in the Treasury.

Ruth’s background is in government investment, leading work on post office reform and the restructuring of British energy. Polly also hails from the Treasury originally, but had previously worked at the University of Sussex.

As trailblazers in the world of senior civil service job sharing, Hannant and Payne have been the subject of frequent profiles: among many examples we find them in Civil Service World, and on the official Civil Service blog. From the latter we learn they started working together in 2010, having met via a “speed dating” like application process to replace Payne’s previous job-share partner.

They use a shared virtual notebook, shared email, and shared diary – but do also go in for handover meetings to pass on some of the more intangible learnings from meetings. And, in their worlds there are benefits to this approach to working: “providing two heads on any challenge and inbuilt moral support on difficult issues.”

As a director general in a government department if you have to turn round a quote for the media in five minutes something has gone very wrong – but it is not outside the realms of probability that a newspaper expose or a collapsing provider will need the kind of quick response that one head is very often far better than two at delivering. It remains to be seen how the impressive working patterns and out-of-hours handovers that have driven this joint career play out in a public-facing role. And it is a public-facing role: though Peck is very keen to be a hands-on chair, the chief executive role is not that of a director-general style senior administrator.

Hannant and Payne’s period in charge of higher education came at a turbulent time for the sector: a green paper, white paper, HERA and the draft regulatory framework ushered in a new era and a new arms-length body. Though we can’t blame them for Toby Young (that was a decision made by an all-male panel, according to the Commissioner for Public Appointments) the pair would have had input into the appointment of a student board member (Ruth Carlson), and into the design and delivery of the Office for Students, including the appointment of Browne Review veteran Michael Barber as the first chair.

And speaking of the Browne review, both were in post in a senior Treasury role with responsibility for the Business, Innovation, and Skills department at the time of the 2010 election and the last but one major review of higher education funding. It’s pretty much public knowledge these days that Michael Barber wrote much of it, but it is not hard to imagine significant Treasury input into the design of both those proposals and the system that was eventually implemented through the mangle of coalition politics.

If you see inadequate regulation and inequitable funding as the two key problems that the sector currently faces in England, it is perhaps comforting to see the appointment of joint chief executives that had an inside line on the politics and horse trading of the design of the systems that currently manage both. Sometimes a deep understanding of these inner workings are what is needed to set a system back on the right track – or to proffer the honesty to rework where things are not working.

And what’s on the agenda? Aside from the known unknowns around provider finances, the big forthcoming attraction will be the launch of the finalised approach to quality (the one that extended TEF down and B3 up to meet). The deadline for comments on the consultation document was back in December and it went to the board on 11 February – as we understand it the model has not been popular either inside or outside the organisation so the intended publication data of June 2026 clearly builds in time for a more radical rethink as needed.

June 15 is the official start date for Hannant and Payne, but it does feel likely that they will be getting to grips with this key component of the Office for Students before then and I’d bet against interim chief executive Josh Fleming having to front it out.