The Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff

The Welsh Government is looking to recruit a chief digital officer to lead an agenda of service transformation.

The post of CDO was first created in 2015 and, in the years since then, the role has been primarily dedicated to revamping the Welsh Government’s internal technology infrastructure. With incumbent Caren Fullerton retiring later this year, her replacement will be tasked with switching the focus to the digitisation of citizen services.

In an introduction to the candidate pack, permanent secretary Shan Morgan said that Fullerton has overseen a “successful internal transformation” that has seen a number of IT services brought back in-house.

“Much of the Welsh Government’s legacy infrastructure has been removed, through an ambitious and groundbreaking move to cloud-based platforms which has delivered a transformed desktop experience for all staff,” she said. “There is a great deal of work remaining to sustain the new model and achieve our goal of being a modern digital government. However, platforms are now established to build modern services quickly and cost effectively, and the organisations is in a very strong position to find efficiencies and transform ways of working.”

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Morgan added: “Going forward, our ambition is to consolidate and build on the progress made internally, moving focus onto an externally facing agenda – digital Wales and transformed digital public services, rather than simply digital Welsh Government. This role is very important to ministers in taking forward their digital agenda for the citizens of Wales. We are not looking for a technician, but we are looking for an individual with the leadership qualities and technical insight to advise at the most senior levels of government.”

The new digital chief will oversee the work of 100 civil servants, and will manage an annual budget of as much as £13m. 

The successful candidate will also be expected to work with digital leaders in other parts of the public sector, including the NHS and local government.

The position is expected to come with an annual salary of £92,000.

Applications are open until 4 March, with psychometric testing of shortlisted candidates scheduled to take place in early April. This will be followed by a staff engagement exercise on 20 April, a briefing with the relevant cabinet minister on 23 April and, finally, a panel interview on 29 April.