The all-powerful top civil servant in each government department used to be known simply as the secretary or even permanent secretary. Now this individual is called the secretary general. The change came in under the Public Service Management Act over a year ago after much debate among civil servants and programme managers but no one, officially, can tell Quidnunc why. Unofficially she hears that one senior bureaucrat was so miffed during an official visit to Japan that he took steps to change the job name. The Japanese had translated his title of permanent secretary as "the everlasting typist".