Michael Barber, Baron Barber of Chittlehampton

The Lord Barber of Chittlehampton
Official government portrait
Head of Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit
In office
2001–2005
Prime Minister's Envoy to the Palestinian Authority
Assumed office
9 December 2024
Chairman of Somerset County Cricket Club
Assumed office
2022
Chancellor of Exeter University
Assumed office
2022
Member of the House of Lords
Life peerage
21 January 2026
Personal details
BornMicheal Bayldon Barber
(1955-11-24) 24 November 1955
Liverpool, Lancashire, England
CitizenshipBritain
PartyLabour
Alma materUniversity of Oxford
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Michael Bayldon Barber, The Lord Barber of Chittlehampton (born 24 November 1955) is a British former civil servant and educationist known for serving as head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit under Tony Blair’s government. He is the founder and chairman of Delivery Associates, a global advisory firm.

He has advised governments in over 60 countries on issues of public policy and delivery. He was the founder and first head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit under Prime Minister Tony Blair, and later served as chief education advisor at Pearson, and as a partner at McKinsey, where he was head of the global education practice. He served as co-chair of Boston Consulting Group's not-for-profit foundation and the Centre for Public Impact.

Barber published How to Run a Government: So that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don’t go Crazy in 2015, and his second book, Accomplishment – How to achieve ambitious and challenging things, was published by Penguin in 2021.

In 2021, he was asked by the UK Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary to conduct a review of government delivery after COVID-19. In January 2022, Barber was appointed Chancellor of the University of Exeter. In April 2022, Barber was announced as the new chairman of Somerset County Cricket Club. In December 2024, he was appointed Prime Minister Keir Starmer's envoy to the Palestinian Authority for economic affairs.