The Ministry of Justice has appointed a new chief executive for the HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

Susan Acland-Hood (pictured) will take up the position on 21 November. Interim chief executive Kevin Sadler will remain in the role until then.

Earlier this year, the Gazette reported that former chief executive Natalie Ceeney had departed her role after just 16 months in post.

Ceeney was originally tasked to take charge of a £700m funding programme announced last year that promised to bring courts into the digital age.

That task will now fall to Acland-Hood, who currently works as director of enterprise and growth at the Treasury.

Her in-box will also include managing the closure of 86 courts in England and Wales, announced earlier this year, as well the recently revealed closure of Hammersmith and Camberwell Green Magistrates’ courts.

Acland-Hood said she was ‘delighted’ to be given the post.

‘There are few things more important than the rule of law, and justice well administered; and few things more rewarding than making change for the better,’ she said, adding that there was a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ to deliver a transformed justice system.

Acland-Hood previously spent two years as director of education funding at the Department for Education.