Michael Bichard

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Sir Michael Bichard KCB is a former civil servant in the United Kingdom, first in local and then central government.

He was Chief Executive of Brent and then Gloucestershire Local Authorities.

In 1990, he became Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency.

In 1995, he was made Permanent Secretary of the Department for Employment; when it merged with the Department for Education to form the Department for Education and Employment (originally DfE, then DfEE), he became Permanent Secretary of the combined department, remaining as such until May 2001, when he retired from the Civil Service, when the department was split into the Department for Education and Skills and Department for Work and Pensions. During his time as PS, he was renowned for being difficult to work with but introduced several modernising reforms to the Department, notably in bringing its use of information technology and new media up to date. He also became a friend of the then Secretary of State, David Blunkett, who made him head of the 2004 the Bichard Inquiry into the "Soham murders" of two 10-year-old girls in Soham.

He was given a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1999.

In September 2001 he was appointed Rector of The University of the Arts London.

He has been the non-Executive Chair of RSe Consulting since 2003. RSe Consulting provides strategic and management consulting services to local government.

Sir Michael was appointed Chair of the Legal Services Commission in April 2005.