Defra director general Emily Miles will leave her role in October to become chief executive of the Care Quality Commission.
Miles, who has been DG for food, farming and biosecurity at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since September 2024, said it will be “a wrench to leave so many colleagues and stakeholders and to leave the work we've been doing together on food and farming over the last decade”.
But she said the CQC is “such an important organisation, and health and social care is fundamental for us all, so it was a huge pull”.
“I will do all I can to help CQC play its proper role, effectively, in the health and social care system,” Miles added.
Before joining Defra as a DG, Miles was chief exec of the Food Standards Agency for five years.
Some of her other past roles include: acting DG for the EU Exit Delivery Group, Defra; director, EU Exit Domestic and Constitutional Affairs Directorate, Defra; group director of strategy; and director, projects, Economic and Domestic Secretariat, Cabinet Office.
In an interview with CSW in 2023, during her spell as chief exec at the FSA, Miles said she joined the civil service because she “wanted to go into the middle of it and understand the difficulties, the trade-offs and the complexity of the situation and try to make incremental improvements”.