CIO job up for grabs at WA's biggest employer

Western Australia’s largest employer, the Department of Education, is on the hunt for a “talented business minded leader” to become its new CIO.

The new tech boss will replace Bevan Doyle, who retires this month after a whopping 46 years with the WA government, an Education spokeswoman told iTnews.

It is touting the perks of the “vitally important role” that will see a successful candidate guide the agency through “its most ambitious reform agenda in decades”.

With roughly 35,000 staff and a budget of $4.5 billion, the department accounts for 26 percent of all state government expenditure each year.

The new CIO will take over the biggest IT network in WA, plus an annual budget of $80 million and 111.5 tech employees.

They will become a “a key member of the executive team” answering to the deputy director-general in charge of finance and administration.

WA Education’s job ad explains the role will govern best-practice IT delivery to 800 schools and other worksites in the state, a task it flagged will “increasingly … be achieved through contract management”.

“The focus will be on client needs, particularly in schools, and on enabling the learning community. To be successful, you will need to work across the department and build productive relationships with key stakeholders in schools,” it says.

The department has offered up $180,588 per annum, plus superannuation and vehicle packages, to experienced executives interested in the job.

The new CIO will join WA Education in the midst of a $32 million replacement of its decades-old core student information system with a new web-based platform.

The staged rollout of the new technology is due to reach a pilot phase in 2018, and full deployment in the second half of 2019.

The modernisation also coincides with a strong critique of the department’s ‘hands-off’ approach to managing IT in schools from the state’s auditor-general, who rebuked the Education administration for allowing the momentum behind digital learning to wane.