Gillian Elizabeth Aitken, CB is a British lawyer, civil servant and university administrator. Since 2018, she has been Registrar of the University of Oxford.
Aitken graduated from St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 1982. [1] She worked for McKenna & Co from 1986 to 1993 [2] and was admitted a solicitor in December 1988. [3] She left the private sector to join the Government Legal Service in 1993. [2]
Aitken worked in the Department of Health (where she worked on NHS Foundation Trusts) until 2004, [2] when she was appointed Director of Legal Services at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). [1] In March 2007, she was appointed Solicitor and Director-General for Legal Services in DEFRA, succeeding Donald Macrae. [4] In 2009 she became the department's Director-General for Law and Corporate Services. [1] In March 2010, she moved to the Department for Work and Pensions to be Director-General, Legal, [5] a role which was expanded in October 2011 as Director-General, Professional Services. [6] In February 2014, she was appointed General Counsel and Solicitor to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), [7] and remained in the role until July 2018. [8]
At HMRC, Aitken headed a team of 180 lawyers and 350 employees which was noted in The Lawyer for having an 80% success rate at trial and adding £20bn to the government's tax income in 2014; [2] it reported that she was responsible for "implementing accurate risk-predictions for ministers, which allow in-house lawyers to use precedent as a type of barometer to determine the percentage outcome of specific claims." [9]
Aitken left HMRC when she was appointed Registrar of the University of Oxford, [10] and in the capacity is "head of the central administrative services", with responsibility for the university's administrative services and governance. [11] She was also elected to a fellowship at St Hugh's College, Oxford. [12]
In the 2019 New Year Honours, Aitken was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), "for services to taxpayers and to social mobility". [13]