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UK: New head for GCHQ

01 January 2003

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David Pepper has been named as the new director of GCHQ, the government electronic surveillance centre based in Cheltenham. Pepper will take up his position in April after the current director, sir Francis Richards, takes up the post of Governor of Gibraltar in the Spring. Pepper, an Oxford graduate, joined GCHQ in 1972 and "spent most of his career in intelligence operations". He became director of personnel in 1995 and transferred to the Home Office three years later as director of corporate development. He rejoined GCHQ during 2000 and rejoined their board as director of finance, and will oversee the building of a new headquarters for the agency, (a project that has run into difficulties after parliamentary concerns over delays and costs). According to Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian newspaper GCHQ has an annual budget of £700 m., the bulk of the £1 billion spent every year by Britain's three security and intelligence agencies. GCHQ press releases 18.12.02, 31.1.03; Guardian 1.2.03.

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