Government advertising for new DWP CIO and Deputy Government CIO posts

Whitehall has begun the search to fill two senior IT posts as a new Government CIO prepares to step into the role.

 

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published an advertisement for a new chief information officer (CIO) and IT director general following the announcement in November that Joe Harley, incumbent CIO at the department who also holds the post of Government CIO, would be retiring from the civil service in the spring of 2012.

 

Harley’s Government CIO boots will be filled by Andy Nelson, a 30 year IT veteran who most recently worked as the IT chief of the Ministry of Justice, as announced on Monday.

 

According to the job ad, the role is described “one of the most influential roles in IT in the UK and will require the highest levels of skills and experience to undertake it". It will involve leading a team of 1,500 IT professionals and will demand "stakeholder engagement" and "communication skills of the highest order".

 

Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office is already in the process of looking for a replacement for Bill McCluggage, the deputy government CIO, who is set to leave his post at the end of this month to join storage company EMC.

 

McCluggage’s successor will be in line for a £120,000 a year salary and a bonus of up to £12,500, according to the job advertisement and will be expected to assist Nelson in setting the strategic director for the transformation of government ICT, based on four strategies covering the G-Cloud, end user devices, ICT capability and greening government ICT, which were published last year.