Former CDDO head is to retake the reins of government tech, as the new administration is shortly expected to provide detail of the structures and strategies of its ‘digital centre’
Former Home Office and Cabinet Office digital bigwig Joanna Davinson has come out of retirement and returned to lead government’s new ‘digital centre’.
The appointment as interim government chief digital officer (GCDO) sees Davinson (pictured above) return to the Central Digital and Data Office, an organisation she led for more than 18 months after its creation in early 2021. She left CDDO – and retired – in September 2022, shortly after Mike Potter was appointed as the first formal GCDO.
Having returned to work in autumn 2023 after being treated for cancer, Potter ultimately resigned his post in September of this year “to focus on my health and recovery”.
Following his departure, the GCDO duties were split between two other executives: chief technology officer David Knott, who took on responsibility for leading the Central Digital and Data Office as an organisation, and executive director of CDDO Gina Gill, who has served as head of the Digital and Data profession throughout government.
Following Davinson’s return to government – confirmed in updates made to her profile on GOV.UK – she will take over the entirety of the GCDO remit. She will also serve as the overall leader of the new digital centre of government established by the Labour administration’s post-election decision to relocate CDDO and sister agency the Government Digital Service.
The two tech units, as well as the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence, are being moved from their previous home in the Cabinet Office to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
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“Joanna Davinson is the interim government chief digital officer, with overarching leadership responsibility for the digital centre,” the online biography says. “She is also the head of profession of the Digital and Data Function across government… She has a wealth of experience in shaping, delivery and assuring complex technology-based programmes.”
It adds: “The interim government chief digital officer provides leadership to the Government Digital and Data function across government and is responsible for leading the government’s digital transformation from the Central Digital and Data Office.”
While Davinson has been appointed to a role based in CDDO, it is understood that, early next year, the government is likely to set out more detailed proposals related to its plans for the DSIT-based ‘digital centre’. As part of which, the GDS and CDDO structures and nomenclature may be retired, and replaced with new brands and entities to lead digital and data work across government going forward.
Before her previous appointment to lead CDDO in 2021, Davinson spent more than three years as chief digital, data and technology officer at the Home Office and, prior to that, almost 30 years with IBM.
Following her retirement, in June 2023 she was named as a non-executive director of HS2 Ltd, the government-funded company created to oversee delivery of the UK’s next-generation rail infrastructure.
PublicTechnology had contacted DSIT requesting comment for this article and was awaiting response at time of going to press.
