Fiona Ryland will step down as government chief people officer later this year, the Cabinet Office has announced.
Ryland will leave the role in November, having taken on the post three years ago in autumn 2022.
In a statement published by the Cabinet Office today, Ryland said: “It has been a brilliant three years working in government, working to professionalise the people function, and helping build a civil service that is now more capable than ever to deliver for people across the country.
“I am immensely proud of the difference that, together with my team and the wider people function, we have delivered in that time.”
Cat Little, the Cabinet Office permanent secretary and civil service chief operating officer, said Ryland has “delivered a huge amount” in her time as government chief people officer, and transformed the Government People Group – the Cabinet Office unit that she leads which was created following the merger of Civil Service HR and Government Business Services – “for the better”.
“I have hugely appreciated how she has used her insights and experience from across the private and public sector to develop and deliver the environment for a modern and professionalised civil service workforce,” Little said.
She added that Ryland has been "a strong leader in the Cabinet Office and a valued member of our Executive Committee".
The Cabinet Office said Ryland's achievements in her tenure as chief people officer included launching the 2024-2027 People Plan, professionalising the people function, improving the Government Recruitment Service and creating new leadership standards for line managers in the civil service to drive performance.
Ryland told CSW in an interview last year that she was "really proud of the People Plan, because I think if we deliver what’s in there – things like making recruitment better, along with addressing some of the challenges we’ve got around reward and improving the employee experience – it will make a really big difference to what the civil service delivers for our citizens, but also to civil servants’ own experience of the workplace. And I do think it’s achievable, because that’s how we’ve built it. We’ve got measures in place: the commitments are constructed in such a way that we’ll know whether we have delivered it or not. I’m confident we will.”
Before joining the civil service, Ryland was chief operating officer at UCL and previously held senior strategy and HR roles at organisations including Compass Group UK & Ireland, Comet, Dixons and Asda.
The Cabinet Office said the process to recruit Fiona’s replacement will begin shortly.