The senior role as government’s overall digital leader, and head of the new and expanded GDS, has been filled on an interim basis by experienced Whitehall tech executive Joanna Davinson

Government will appoint a permanent cross-Whitehall chief digital officer via an open competitive recruitment process, a minister has said.

The GCDO position provides not only the figurehead for digital and data operations across government, but also serves as the executive leader of the Government Digital Service. Before its move from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, GDS had a chief executive – Christine Bellamy, who has now been moved to a post as government chief product officer.

Above her, in December former Home Office and Cabinet Office digital bigwig Joanna Davinson came out of retirement to take on the government chief digital officer post on an interim basis.

In a recent written parliamentary question, Conservative MP Mike Wood asked DSIT about “what plans the government has to appoint a permanent chief executive officer of the Government Digital Service, and whether this appointment will be made following an open competition”.

In response, artificial intelligence and digital government minister Feryal Clark explained that, rather than another CEO, the government chief digital officer now “leads the Government Digital Service within DSIT”.  It is this role that will shortly be advertised – with the intention of seeking a permanent replacement for Davinson.

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“GDS is the digital centre of government,” Clark added. “The current GCDO is in post on an interim basis. We will be appointing a permanent GCDO through an open competition to ensure transparency and attract diverse talent.”

The GCDO role – which was then based at the top of the Central Digital and Data Office – was first filled in 2022, with the appointment of former HM Revenue and Customs digital leader Mike Potter. Having returned to work after a period of extended leave in which he was treated for cancer, he resigned his post in September of last year “to focus on my health and recovery”.

His departure from government coincided with the abolition of CDDO, which was reintegrated with GDS as a single entity – to be initially led by Potter’s replacement: Davinson.

When government begin the process of replacing here, it will hope to do so more successfully than some of the previous recent attempts to recruit such a leader. A newly created position as government chief digital and information officer was opened for applications in September 2019 and – after this failed to result in an appointment – the process was, effectively, relaunched 11 months later.

That recruitment exercise also failed to lead to an appointment. However, rather than launch an identical process for the third time, in January 2021 government installed former Home Office digital leader Joanna Davinson as executive head of the newly established CDDO, a role in which she held many of the same responsibilities as the planned GCDIO.

A little over a year later, government did reopen applications for a cross-department digital head and, five months later, Potter was appointed. Davinson departed CDDO shortly thereafter, before her return to govenrment six months ago.