Given that elevation to permanent secretary is widely recognised as the apotheosis of a career in the Whitehall bureaucracy, it is remarkable that so few have been the subject of sustained biographical research and that this key role remains largely un-theorised. As such, this paper reports on aspects of a longitudinal study which set out to examine, evaluate, and categorise to what extent, and how, permanent secretaries influence policy. Based on recorded interviews with those who held this office at the DES from 1976 to 2002, along with those they served and others, it argues that if the role of senior civil servants can be labelled "meta-political", they do influence policy in significant ways. As such, it suggests that their praxis can be interrogated in terms of their activities as makers, shapers, takers, sharers, and resisters of policy in education. Focusing on the career of a committed centraliser, James Hamilton, it examines the contribution he made as permanent secretary to a variety of departmental policy initiatives including the pursuit of voucherisation and the case for a national school curriculum. (Contains 1 table and 10 notes.)