Government Chief Security Officer and Head of the Government Security Function

Paul Vincent Devine is the Government Chief Security Officer and the Head of the Government Security Function.

Vincent spent much of his early civil service career overseas. He worked in the Balkans in the NATO Peacekeeping Force and subsequently the Office of the High Representative; in Brussels as Counsellor for Defence Issues in the UK Delegation to NATO and subsequently Counsellor for Common Foreign and Security Policy in the UK Representation to the EU and; and in the British Embassy in Ukraine on regional cooperation and conflict.

On return to the UK in 2008, he was the senior MOD civilian in Northern Ireland overseeing the Defence contribution to security normalisation; Director of Strategy for the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review; Director Operational Policy for the MOD from 2011 to 2015; and Director Security and Resilience and Defence Chief Security Officer. He joined the Cabinet Office and took up the post of Government Chief Security Officer in December 2021.

Vincent was born, and went to university, in Glasgow.