"I can’t do what I do without them” - Civil servant from Midhurst said OBE honour was a team effort

It was an incredible honour for Samantha Elizabeth Rose, Deputy Director in the Data and Analysis Division at Department for Transport. who said she almost didn’t believe it when the letter first came through her door.

"Speechless is probably the appropriate phrase,” she said. “I work in analysis, and we largely work to support our policy colleagues and our ministers to make evidence based policy and support evidence-based decision making, so we’re very much a supporting function to the main mechanism of government. I was super-surprised to see analysis recognised, rather than just policy. It’s a really big thing for us.

"You get a letter in strictest confidence, and you spend the rest of the day in shock, wondering if this is actually a genuine thing, and it sort of stays that way until the list is published.”

It musty be a strange sort of limbo, carrying a secret like that around with you, and Samantha said she didn’t even tell her family when the letter came through. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), one of the highest ranks of the order, often given, according to the cabinet office, for distinguished work in a regional or county-wide role and as a reward for achievement and service to the community.

Work like that is always a team effort, and Samantha made clear that the award was as much about her team’s hard work as her own: “I’ve got an incredibly capable and innovative and supportive team, who work amazingly well together” she said. “Over the last five years we’ve gone through significant changes and yet every time something new pops up – Brexit, Covid – and we’ve had to stop what we're doing and come up with something completely different, they’ve adapted to that, they’ve adapted to the growth of AI and built more and more skills. I can’t do what I do without them.”