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For about a year and a half now, the UK government has been on the hunt for one of the biggest jobs in tech. The Cabinet Office has been recruiting for its next Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO), a £200,000-a-year role operating at the most senior level of the civil service, to accomplish a seriously daunting task: to lead the public sector s digital transformation.
Now, fifteen months after the GCDO s job was first advertised, and despite confirming on various occasions that the recruitment process was ongoing, the government has quite dramatically changed its course of action. Instead of hiring a digital leader, as originally planned, the Cabinet Office has announced that a whole new organization will be set up later this year to carry out the exact same duties as the ones laid out in the GCDO s job specs.
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In September 2019, the then civil service chief executive John Manzoni told Computer Weekly that the new digital leader he wanted to recruit for the UK government would “have to be very wise, very experienced, and very powerful”.
Originally envisaged as a cross-government chief digital and information officer, the role was subsequently amended to a plain old chief digital officer, to be appointed by a specially formulated selection panel, which included Home Office chief digital, data and technology officer Joanna Davinson; Manzoni’s successor, civil service chief operating officer (COO) Alex Chishol
The Cabinet Office has announced plans for a new entity and a trio of senior appointments for digital and data in the UK Government.
It is setting up a Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) as a strategic centre for digital, data and technology, with Paul Willmott as its chair and Joanna Davinson as chief executive officer.
This comes with the appointment of Tom Read as the new chief executive officer of the Government Digital Service (GDS).
In a division of roles previously under the remit of GDS, it will be responsible for the standards, controls and assurance functions, and focus on the development of new digital products and services.
Finance and governance are not the gatekeepers of innovation
By Adam Branson on 18/12/2020
Team work and collaboration is the key to unlocking innovation. Credit: George Becker/Pexels
At a recent event, senior leaders discussed how governance and processes can support new thinking. While siloes can be problematic, COVID has shown that collaboration is key. Adam Branson reports
“Finance and governance are sometimes seen as the enemy, the gatekeeper or the judge of people who are just trying to get something solved,” said Matthew Rees, director of regulation and economics at the Single Source Regulations Office in the UK.
“The procurement and the commercial team need the help, they need their colleagues to work with them to get the right solution,” he added. “That needs to be capable of being inspected – and scrutiny is important – but it’s the teamwork that brings it all together rather than an adversarial relationship, which doesn’t work very well.”