Tom Scholar


Sir Thomas Whinfield Scholar KCB is a British civil servant currently serving as Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury. Scholar was previously the Prime Minister's Adviser on European and Global Issues in the Cabinet Office.

Early life and education

Son of civil servant Sir Michael Scholar, non-executive chairman of the British government's Statistics Board and former President of St John's College, Oxford, Scholar was educated at Dulwich College, Trinity Hall, Cambridge and the London School of Economics. He has two younger brothers, Richard and John.

Career

Scholar joined HM Treasury in 1992, rising to Principal Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997, serving Gordon Brown for four years until 2001. Following that posting, Scholar served as the British representative on the boards of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, attached to the British Embassy in Washington as Minister for Economic Affairs for six years.
In 2007, following Brown taking over the leadership of the Labour Party and thus the office of Prime Minister, Scholar returned to the UK taking over the two roles of Downing Street Chief of Staff from Jonathan Powell and of Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister from Oliver Robbins. After six months, Scholar left Number 10 to return to the Treasury as the Managing Director of its International and Finance Directorate in January 2008. The next year, Scholar was promoted to be the Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, taking over from John Kingman. In this role, Scholar was a director of the nationalised bank, Northern Rock.
Four years later, in 2013 Scholar returned to Downing Street, now under David Cameron, to run the European and Global Issues Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. As such he was the Prime Minister's most senior adviser on international affairs until his appointment on 11 March 2016 as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. As of September 2015, Scholar was paid a salary of between £150,000 and £154,999, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.
In March 2016 the government announced that Scholar would succeed Sir Nick Macpherson as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in April 2016. Scholar was replaced at the Cabinet Office by Oliver Robbins, who took over the role as a "post-Brexit" unit in June 2016, which the next month became the Department for Exiting the European Union when Theresa May created her first Cabinet.
He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 2017 Birthday Honours.

Personal life

Scholar is married to Fabiola Altimari and has three daughters.