My father, Robin Wendt, who has died aged 80, had a long and distinguished career in central and local government, including as a senior civil servant, chief executive of a county council and head of two bodies representing local authorities. He was born in Preston into a Methodist family. His father, Bill, was a local government accountant and his mother, Doris (nee Glover), was a schoolteacher. Educated at Hutton Grammar school and Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied PPE, in 1962 Robin joined the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, which later became the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). During those early days in London, he met Prue Dalby, a photographer, at Hinde Street Methodist church in Marylebone, and they married in 1965. Robin became principal private secretary to the Labour social services secretary Richard Crossman and, in the civil service tradition, also to his Conservative successor, Keith Joseph, after the 1970 general election. He subsequently rose to be assistant secretary at the DHSS. In 1975 he moved to become deputy secretary at Cheshire county council, taking promotion to chief executive four years later at the age of 38 and skilfully helping to guide the authority during a period when no party had overall control. When he returned to work in London in 1989 as secretary and de facto chief executive of the Association of County Councils, he steered the ACC through a turbulent period, helping to counter suggestions in a local authority review that county councils should be abolished in favour of creating smaller unitary authorities. He was appointed CBE in 1996, and when the ACC merged with its counterparts for metropolitan and district councils to form the new Local Government Association in 1997, Robin joined the National Association of Local Councils – representing parish and town councils – as its chief executive for two years before taking early retirement. Settling back in Cheshire, where he had been appointed deputy lieutenant in 1990, Robin threw himself into a host of local causes, and chaired the Chester summer music festival for eight years to 2008. He also served as a member of the Royal Commission on Long-term Care for the Elderly at the end of the 1990s, as a board member of the charity Action for Children (1997 to 2008) and as a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee for 20 years to 2002. Robin and Prue enjoyed travel to far-flung destinations, including Antarctica, but he was never happier than when at home, reading political biographies while listening to classical music and following the fortunes of Preston North End football club and Lancashire’s county cricketers. He was also a frequent contributor to the Guardian letters page, often on the subject of the values of public service. He is survived by Prue, and by their children, Julia and me, and grandchildren, James, Lucy and Oscar.