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Beverley Shears has joined the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) as director of HR.

Shears will focus on helping deliver the people strategy and building an HR delivery model for the department's 28,000 national staff.

She was previously an HR consultant and, prior to consultancy work, HR director at South West Trains.

"The whole idea of rights and justice ties in with my values and I wanted to work in a corporate environment where I could make a difference," Shears told Personnel Today. There's a lot of change ahead and I'll be involved with the government's reform agenda."

Shears had already had a brief insight into the organisation as a consultant coach and liked what she saw.

She said the key HR issues within any organisation were fundamentally the same, regardless of whether it was public or private sector.

"It's essentially about resourcing talented people, making the business more effective and looking at the leadership programme," she said.

Shears is also vice-president of employee relations at the CIPD and an examiner for the Institute of Directors.