HM Treasury News Release
142/97                                     17 November 1997
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               SENIOR CIVIL SERVICE APPOINTMENT
                          HM TREASURY
                               

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has, with the agreement of the
Prime Minister, appointed Mr Gus O'Donnell as Director of the
Treasury's Macroeconomic Policy and Prospects Directorate.  Mr
O'Donnell succeeds Sir Alan Budd who retired from the Treasury
on 14 November.  In addition to the existing functions of the
MPP Directorate, Mr O'Donnell has been asked to take
responsibility for, and give additional emphasis to, long-term
economic analysis across the range of Treasury policies and
interests.  He will also be head of the Government Economic
Service.




Notes for Editors

1.   Mr O'Donnell will be head the Treasury's Macroeconomic
Policy and Prospects Directorate.  The responsibilities of the
Directorate include fiscal and macroeconomic policy, economic
prospects, EMU, debt and resource management and the Bank of
England Bill.   He will normally attend meetings of the Bank of
England's Monetary Policy Committee as the Treasury
representative.  This is in addition to the responsibility for
long-term economic analysis announced above.

2.   Mr O'Donnell will also be head of the Government Economic
Service, consisting of around 520 economists working in all the
major Government Departments.

3.   Mr O'Donnell is 45.  He is currently the Economic Minister
at the British Embassy in Washington and the UK's Executive
Director of the IMF and World Bank.  He took his first degree
at Warwick University and a second degree at Oxford.  He
lectured in Economics at Glasgow University and then joined the
Treasury as a Senior Economic Assistant in 1979.    In a varied
career, Mr O'Donnell has not only filled a number of economic
posts in the Treasury but has served as the First Secretary
(Economics) in Washington and as Press Secretary to both the
Chancellor and the Prime Minister.  Before returning to
Washington earlier this year, he was a Deputy Director in the
Treasury, responsible for monetary policy and EMU.