__NOTOC__ The Director of the Government Communications Headquarters is the highest-ranking official in the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency that specialises in signals intelligence, information assurance and cryptography. The director is a Permanent Secretary, and appointed by and reports to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
Though the prime minister of the United Kingdom has ultimate responsibility within the British government for security matters and the intelligence agencies, the Foreign Secretary has day to day ministerial responsibility for GCHQ. The Director of GCHQ is also a permanent member of the United Kingdom's National Security Council and the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee.
The role of the Director of GCHQ was outlined by the Intelligence Services Act 1994, in which the director is described as "...responsible for the efficiency of GCHQ". The director's role is to ensure:
The GCHQ director has become more publicly visible in the wake of the 2013 global surveillance disclosures. Sir Arthur Bonsall, director from 1973 to 1978, was the first director to speak publicly about his career at GCHQ when he was interviewed by the BBC in September 2013, and Sir Iain Lobban testified before parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee in the wake of the disclosures in November 2013. The director from 1989 to 1996, Sir John Adye, had previously spoken as a witness at the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in February 2008 to deny that GCHQ had any involvement in the tape recordings that led to the "Camillagate" or "Squidgygate" scandals.
Soon after taking on the role in 2014, Robert Hannigan authored under his own name an article in the Financial Times on the topic of internet surveillance.
List of GCHQ directors Image Name Term 1 Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair 1921–1939 Cmdr Alastair Denniston 1921–1942Operational head 2 Sir Edward Travis 1942–1952 3 Sir Eric Jones 1952–1960 4 Sir Clive Loehnis 1960–1964 5 Sir Leonard Hooper 1965–1973 6 Sir Arthur Bonsall 1973–1978 7 Sir Brian John Maynard Tovey 1978–1983 8 Sir Peter Marychurch 1983–1989 9 Sir John Anthony Adye 1989–1996 10 Sir David Omand 1996–1997 11 Sir Kevin Tebbit 1998 12 Sir Francis Richards 1998–2003 13 Sir David Pepper 2003–2008 14 Sir Iain Lobban 2008–2014 15 Robert Hannigan 2014–2017 16 Sir Jeremy Fleming 2017–2023 17 Anne Keast-Butler 2023–present
See also Director General of the Security Service (MI5) Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)
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