Group Human Resources Director

James Norton

Biography

James Norton was appointed Group Human Resources (HR) Director at the Department for Transport (DfT) in November 2021.

Prior to this, James was HR and Organisational Development Director for the Department for International Trade from July 2016. In that role, he led on establishing a new government department and building the workforce capability required to develop and implement an independent trade policy for the UK.

James also set up the HR function at DfT and developed the first people strategy.

His previous roles include responsibility for growing and developing in-house talent and recruitment services for the Civil Service including the award-winning Fast Stream and Fast Track apprenticeship programmes.

James initially joined the Civil Service on the generalist Fast Stream where he undertook placements in policy, operations and HR in the Department for Work and Pensions before specialising in HR.

James is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development.

Group Human Resources Director

This role covers all functional areas of HR for DfT including:

  • recruitment and resourcing
  • talent, leadership and inclusion
  • organisation design and development
  • HR policies
  • reward, performance management
  • employee relations and casework

It also provides operational, policy and reward HR services across the executive agencies and reward expertise to our shareholder functions.

Department for Transport