Sir William Alexander Jeffrey, KCB (born 28 February 1948) is a former senior British civil servant, who retired in the autumn of 2010. Jeffrey was educated at

Allan Glen's School Allan Glen's School was, for most of its existence, a local authority, selective secondary school for boys in Glasgow, Scotland, charging nominal fees for tuition. It was founded by the Allan Glen's Endowment Scholarship Trust on the death, i ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, and the

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. He joined the Home Office in 1971. From 1998 until 2002 he was Political Director of the Northern Ireland Office, supporting the Prime Minister and successive Secretaries of State on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. He was subsequently Britain's most senior immigration official – director-general of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate – from 2002 to 2005. In April 2005 he joined the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...

as Security and Intelligence Coordinator, where he was the Prime Minister's principal adviser on security, intelligence, and counter-terrorism strategy. In September 2005 he was announced as

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence The Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Defence, also called the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, is the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence. The office holder is the government's principal civilian adviser on Defen ...

. Already a Companion of the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved Bathing#Medieval ...

(CB), he was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2007 New Year Honours List. Bill Jeffrey is now Chair of the UK's independent policing think tank the Police Foundation.

Criticism

Jeffrey has been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee chairman

Edward Leigh Sir Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (born 20 July 1950) is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1983. Leigh has represented Gainsborough, Lincolnshire in the House of Commons since 1983 (re ...

for prioritizing the renovating of leisure facilities over the "unacceptable housing" conditions for troops and their families. The paper said 19,000 service homes were in disrepair, half of all single accommodation was "below par" and that some servicemen would have to wait 20 years for improvements.

said: "...you (Bill Jeffrey) have cut £13.5 million of essential work out of regional prime contracts, but you have obliged the same contractors to do £45 million on other projects, including resurfacing

tennis courts A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be u ...

and building all-weather pitches. As director-general of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate Jeffrey formulated a concerted policy of risk-taking by immigration staff who were asked when processing non-European Union migrants applying to work, study or marry to attempt, where possible, to make positive (permissive) judgments where it was not certain that applications could be denied.Home Office covered up immigration risk. The Times, 8 November 2009
/ref> He communicated this policy, applying to hundreds of thousands of cases, in a note to

Beverley Hughes Beverley June Hughes, Baroness Hughes of Stretford (born 30 March 1950) is a British politician serving as Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. A member of the Labour Party, Hughes was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stretford an ...

, minister of state for citizenship and immigration. Hughes was later forced to resign for misleading MPs about whether she had been warned of the likely threat of Romanian and Bulgarian crime gangs taking advantage of the UK opening its borders to those seeking work from eastern Europe. This Whitehall correspondence, which was illegally withheld by the Home Office for four years, reveals an official policy to grant applications rather than to refuse them, thus fast-tracking over 300,000 applications with minimal checks. According to Times reporters, a number of serious criminals were admitted, including members of the Taliban.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeffrey, Bill 1948 births Living people People educated at Allan Glen's School Alumni of the University of Glasgow Civil servants in the Home Office Civil servants in the Cabinet Office Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Permanent Under-Secretaries of State for Defence Civil servants in the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)