Sir David Bruce Omand (born 15 April 1947) is a British former senior civil servant who served as the

Director of the Government Communications Headquarters __NOTOC__ The Director of the Government Communications Headquarters is the highest-ranking official in the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency that specialises in signals intelligence, information assurance ...

(

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

) from 1996 to 1997.

Background

Omand was born on 15 April 1947. His father, Bruce, was a Justice of the Peace. Omand was educated at

Glasgow Academy The Glasgow Academy is a coeducational independent day school for pupils aged 3–18 in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2016, it had the third-best Higher level exam results in Scotland. Founded in 1845, it is the oldest continuously fully independent ...

and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, receiving an

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

degree.

Career

Omand began his career at GCHQ.Aldrich, David, ''GCHQ'', Harper Press, 2010, , p.495 After working for the Ministry of Defence for a number of years, Omand was appointed Director of GCHQ from 1996 to 1997. His next post was

Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office The Permanent Under-Secretary of State of the Home Office is the permanent secretary of the Home Office, the most senior civil servant in the department, charged with running its affairs on a day-to-day basis. Home Office Permanent Secretaries ...

. Omand was appointed a

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as o ...

(KCB) in the

2000 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2000 for the United Kingdom and New Zealand were announced on 31 December 1999, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 2000. The ''Honours list'' is a list of people who have been awarded one of the various ...

. In 2002 he became the first Permanent Secretary and Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office. Omand was among those who decided that David Kelly should be pursued for talking to the media about the Government's dossier on Iraq's alleged WMD. Omand and

Kevin Tebbit Sir Kevin Reginald Tebbit (born 18 October 1946)"TEBBIT, Sir Kevin Reginald (1946 - )", ''Debrett's People of Today'', 2004 is a former British civil servant. Career He was educated at the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and was a senior hi ...

, then permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, recommended to

Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...

and

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

that

John Scarlett Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...

become the new head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). In 2003 Omand participated in the development of the United Kingdom's general counter-terrorism strategy,

CONTEST Contest may refer to: * Competition * Will contest * Contesting, amateur radio contesting (radiosport) Film and television * ''Contest'' (2013 film), an American film * Contest (1932 film), a German sports film * " The Contest", a 1992 season ...

. Omand was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 2004 Birthday Honours. He retired from the Cabinet Office in April 2005. In 2007, he obtained

Maths Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

degrees from the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

. In 2009 he was asked by the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...

Alan Johnson Alan Arthur Johnson (born 17 May 1950) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education and Skills from 2006 to 2007, Secretary of State for Health from 2007 to 2009, Home Secretary from 2009 to 2010, and Shadow Chanc ...

, to carry out a review into the

Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is a British statutory advisory non-departmental public body, which was established under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Mandate Its terms of reference, according to the Act, are as follows: '' ...

to "satisfy ministers" that the council is "discharging the functions" that it is supposed to. On 20 January 2010, Omand gave evidence to

the Iraq Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot)BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' programme: "We have the brains. They have the money. It's a collaboration that's worked very well." Since leaving the government, Omand has landed jobs with several military-related companies. He has been a non-executive director at UK arms company

Babcock International Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

and Italian arms company

Leonardo-Finmeccanica Leonardo S.p.A., formerly Leonardo-Finmeccanica and originally Finmeccanica, is an Italian multinational company specialising in aerospace, defence and security. Headquartered in Rome, Italy, the company has 180 sites worldwide. It is the eighth ...

and has also worked as an adviser to the Society of British Aerospace Companies. In October 2020, he authored a book titled ''How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence'' covering his views on long-term intelligence analysis gained from his experience working with British governments from

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

Links with academia

Omand is currently a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at King's College London and is a vice-president of the

Royal United Services Institute The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI, Rusi), registered as Royal United Service Institute for Defence and Security Studies and formerly the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, is a British defence and security think tank. ...

. Omand's second book applies the idea of

Just War theory The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is ...

to intelligence. In '' COMEC Occasional Papers'' Omand wrote about civil-military relationships in 2018. Omand participated in TEDxLambeth, a conference based in Lambeth, where he spoke about ideas from his book'', How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence'', in October 2020.

Personal life

Omand married Elizabeth Wales in 1971; they have two children. He is a member of the

Reform Club The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...

. He served a four-year term on the board of the

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

, starting in 2006. He remains a trustee.

References

External links

November 2013 interview with Ormand
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Omand, David Living people 1947 births Academics of King's College London Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Civil servants in the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) Directors of the Government Communications Headquarters Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath People educated at the Glasgow Academy Permanent Secretaries of the Cabinet Office Permanent Under-Secretaries of State for the Home Department