Sir Richard Clive Mottram GCB (born 23 April 1946) is a former British civil servant, who retired in 2007 from his most recent senior post as Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience in the Cabinet Office.

He entered the central government civil service in 1968 aged 22 with a first class degree in International relations from Keele University.

He was then the secretary of two study groups on the rationale for and system options for a successor to the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent which led subsequently to the decision to adopt Trident.

In 1985, as private secretary to Michael Heseltine, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, he was a witness for the prosecution in the trial of Clive Ponting, who was later acquitted of an offence under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 for passing information to Labour MP Tam Dalyell about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War.

The national railway infrastructure company Railtrack got into serious financial difficulties after the Hatfield rail crash in October 2000, and on 7 October 2001 was put into administration on the petition of the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions Stephen Byers MP in very controversial circumstances.

Mottram was closely involved in the preparations for the administration of Railtrack and in July 2005 was called as a witness in the largest class legal action ever brought in the English courts, when 49,500 shareholders of Railtrack sued the Secretary of State for Transport for damages for misfeasance in public office.

We're all completely fucked.After Sixmith included this quote in an interview with the Sunday Times about his "resignation" it was picked up extensively in the media and tended to be reported in bowdlerised form as "f***ed", leading Tony Wright, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee at the time, to comment to Mottram that "Our note-takers have trouble with asterisks.

"[3] Sir Richard was embarrassed by the report of his remarks, and was asked about them by the House of Commons Public Administration Committee on 7 March 2002.

In response, he said: "I find the subject of the remarks I am alleged to have made with the asterisks one of the most tedious subjects I have ever had to deal with ... What is actually the case is that much to my regret, actually, these remarks appeared in the newspapers, they were uttered in private to one person, with one other person in the room and they were quite clearly over the top in a number of respects, not least in describing the nature of the crisis we were engulfed in.

"[4] Sir Richard has worked closely with a large number of Ministers and took the impartiality and professionalism of the civil service very seriously.

Sir Richard moved to a strategic position at the Cabinet Office on 11 November 2005 as Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator (still as a permanent secretary and also as a safe pair of hands with wide experience across government).

He also acted as deputy chair of the Civil Contingencies Committee, supporting the prime minister, home secretary and other ministers in their role as chair and, in the event of any serious incident requiring central government coordination, acting as the Government's senior crisis manager.

Sir Richard retired from the Civil Service in November 2007 when the responsibilities he held were reorganised into two posts, with the Cabinet Secretary taking on the Accounting Officer role for the Intelligence Agencies.

Sir Richard served as a Board Member and then from 2002 to 2004 President of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management.