David Williams joined Communities and Local Government in November 2007 as the new Director for Cohesion. He now heads up CLG’s teams leading on cohesion and faith issues, preventing extremism, race equality and diversity, gypsies and travellers and the Citizenship Survey.

David moves to the Department from a year-long secondment to the Local Government Association as programme director for safer communities and cohesion. There he led policy development and lobbying work with the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and CLG itself on issues such as crime and disorder, community cohesion, and fire and rescue.

David's background before joining the LGA is as a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence. Recent roles include running the Department's CSR07 team; long-term planning and resource allocation work; equipment acquisition (in support of operations); and a spell working for Geoff Hoon MP in the Defence Secretary’s private office.