Paul Grimes (public servant)
Paul Francis Grimes is a senior Australian public servant. Between September 2013 and March 2015, he was Secretary of the Australian Government Department of Agriculture. Life and career Grimes received a Bachelor of Economics from Flinders University in 1989, later completing a Masters of Economics and a PhD in Economics at the Australian National University. His PhD thesis, which he completed in 1994, was titled The Determinants of Trade Union Membership: Evidence from Two Australian Surveys. He finished his secondary education at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West in 1984. In the South Australian public service, Grimes obtained the role of Deputy Under Secretary in the Department of Treasury and Finance. Between March 2005 and January 2007, Grimes was ACT Under Treasurer in the ACT Public Service. In the role he oversaw the ACT Government's transition to the GFS accounting system, a change that then Treasurer Jon Stanhope suggested would enable the Government to have a more realistic and less volatile basis upon which to base budgeting decisions. He also assisted in developing and delivering the 2006–07 ACT Government Budget, which involved major structural change to ACT Government agencies; and consolidated IT and procurement services across