Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Official Shaun Gallagher is to replace Dr Colin Church as Director of Environmental Quality Policy at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the outgoing director has announced.
Church is leaving the role of the department’s head of recycling and waste policy today (17 March) after four years in the role. He has had a number of roles at Defra, previously working as Director of Climate Change, Exotic Diseases & Agency Relations. Church has been a civil servant for over 21 years and has also held roles in the Department of Energy & Climate Change and the Better Regulation Executive.
The Director of Environmental Quality has a wide range of responsibilities, including the government’s policies on adaptation to a changing climate, air quality, industrial pollution prevention, local environment quality, resource efficiency and waste, sustainable development and sustainable procurement. In the role, Church is also responsible for the government’s support for waste infrastructure development.
Church announced that Gallagher would be taking up his vacated role at the end of March in a series of tweets this week.
[1/2]Into my last week at work as Director Environmental Quality. Delighted to confirm my successor Shaun Gallagher will start end March.
— Colin Church (@DrColinChurch) March 10, 2016
[2/2]Shaun is v experienced Director with background in various policy areas, most recently Justice. Am sure the sector will be nice to him!
— Colin Church (@DrColinChurch) March 10, 2016
Church announced in January that he was to leave Defra at the end of March.
Gallagher, currently the Director of Access to Justice at the MoJ, has never held an environmental role, but has worked for government since 1993, holding a variety of posts in the Department of Health until January 2014 and subsequently the MoJ.
Gallagher also spent four years from 2005-2009 working as Director of Policy at the government’s pharmaceutical regulator the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
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