SIR ROBERT COX

Sir Robert -Cox, KCB, Chief Executive of the Property Services Agency and Second Permanent Secretary in the Department of the Environment since 1974, died on June 27. He was 59.

Bob Cox bad a distinguished career in Whitehall, where he displayed outstanding ability in posts that required both the traditional policy skills of the senior civil servant and the management ability to control large executive organizations.

The son of W. R. Cox, he was born on January 2, 1922. He was educated at Peter Symonds School, Winchester and at Christs College, Cambridge. After entering the Civil Service in 1941 he transferred to the Foreign Office and then joined the Ministry of Town and Country Planning in 1950.

He made a major contribution to regional planning and the reform of the planning system in the 1960s and worked closely with the late Anthony Crosland in the Office of the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning which preceded the setting up of the Department of the Environment.

From 1970 to 1973 he was Director General bf the Prison Service at the Home Office where he quickly established himself as a firm and resourceful administrator, taking a great interest in the practical and human problems of the Prison Service. In 1974' he became Deputy Chief Executive of the Property Services Agency and later th,at year was appointed chief executive in succession to Sir John Cuckney.

'In -his sii years' as 'chif executive he made a point of seeing the agency's work on the ground both in the United Kingdom -and -at posts- throughout the world. He provided a strong sense of continuity for the agency in a period of rapid change, with the emphasis always on getting the job done to time and on cost. It was -a great loss to the agency, and indeed to the public service generally, when he found earlier this year that it would be necessary to retire on health grounds.

He married in 1948 Elizabeth Anne Priestley Marten who survives him with' one son and one daughter.