With her impressive knowledge of housing policy, McDonald provided a "steadying hand" amid machinery of government changes
Known as a figure of strength and continuity in changing times, Dame Mavis McDonald’s 39-year civil service career culminated in her appointment as permanent secretary first to the Cabinet Office and then to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister under the leadership of John Prescott.
Reportedly adept at managing Prescott when he was in a bad mood, McDonald was also a respected font of policy knowledge in the areas of housing, regeneration, community development and local government. In the midst of a series of reshuffles and machinery of government changes under New Labour, David Butler, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said in 2002: “At least we have a permanent secretary who understands the links between housing and other policy areas.” McDonald was made an honorary member of the Institute to reflect her “significant contribution” to housing.
McDonald joined the civil service in 1966, having graduated from the London School of Economics with a BSc in Economics and Politics, going straight into the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Her burgeoning interest in housing policy would see her promoted to senior roles including director of housing resources and management, and director of local government. As a result she was often in positions of influence at key moments – such as her role as assistant secretary to the central policy planning unit from 1981 to 83, at the time of the controversial “right to buy” policy under the Thatcher government.
By 1995 McDonald had risen to become director general at the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, where she did a five-year stint, focusing her brief on housing and neighbourhood regeneration.
According to Matthew Weaver, writing for The Guardian in 2002, McDonald applied to become chief executive of the housing corporation in 2000. “With her background she was considered a certainty for the job, but withdrew her application when she was promoted to become permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office,” Weaver wrote. The perm sec role, which she achieved under Richard Wilson’s tenure as cabinet secretary, made McDonald the tenth woman ever to reach this level of seniority in the civil service.
One year into McDonald’s tenure as permanent secretary, a scandal shook the civil service and led to the creation of a new government department. The scandal – known as “spin-gate” – stemmed from a leaked email in which Jo Moore, special advisor to the transport secretary Stephen Byers, proposed on 11th September 2001 that it might be a good day to “bury” bad news. Martin Sixsmith, director of communications at the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, was drawn into the row, which was seen to expose intense internal conflict in Whitehall between political “spin” and apolitical civil servants. Ultimately the scandal led to the exit of both Moore and Sixsmith, and then to the resignation of Stephen Byers, following accusations that Byers had misled Parliament over the Sixsmith affair.
On 29th May 2002 – the day after Byers’ resignation – the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was established as an independent department, having previously been part of the Cabinet Office. The Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions was stripped back to become the Department of Transport.
The ODPM (which would evolve into today's MHCLG) took over the local government and the regions brief, as well as the social exclusion brief from the Cabinet Office. McDonald had been the official in charge of the deputy prime minister's office while it was within the Cabinet Office and now, with her depth of policy knowledge and her steadying influence, was to be at the helm of the new department.
Alongside the challenge of significant machinery of government changes, McDonald also needed to rebuild the reputation of her department’s press office in the aftermath of the Sixsmith scandal, while taking forward a significant portfolio of work. She was, according to Weaver's 2002 article, “a steady hand on the tiller”.
Weaver also described McDonald’s “fearsome” reputation, quoting a senior local government source as saying: “She’s direct, and she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” A former colleague of McDonald’s is also said to have commented: “You don’t get to be a permanent secretary as a woman without being tough.”
During her time at ODPM McDonald chaired an influential policy team, set up by the social exclusion unit, to look at ways of tackling the growth of inner-city abandonment and unpopular housing. The recommendations of the group led to a marked change of policy, moving from a national to a regional approach to neighbourhood renewal.
Housing academic professor Glen Bramley from Heriott Watt University, who was a member of the social exclusion unit team, said: “It felt like a process that led to quite a rethink, and [McDonald] was a forceful part of that.”
One year before her retirement, in the New Year’s Honours List 2004, McDonald was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath, recognising her distinguished civil service career.
McDonald also took an active role as independent governor of Birkbeck College, University of London, from 1999, a role she carried out alongside her civil service position until her retirement from ODPM in 2005.
Speaking of her role at Birkbeck some years later, she said: “We were encouraged to widen our interests outside of our work and it was fascinating to see the Department of Education from a completely different perspective.”
McDonald went on to become deputy chair of governors at Birkbeck from 2004 to 2008. Speaking at the end of her tenure at Birkbeck , McDonald reflected that she loved being a civil servant, saying: “You are right at the heart of everything and get to be involved in extremely important and influential matters."