Govt CTO becomes Finance CIO

Australian government procurement co-ordinator and CTO John Sheridan has become the Department of Finance’s new chief information and security officer after an internal reorganisation.

Sheridan replaces the agency's former chief information and security officer Michael Hirschfield, who has taken up Sheridan’s old post as government procurement co-ordinator.

He will head up the agency's new ICT division. His former technology and procurement division - the last vestige of the AGIMO - has now become the procurement and insurance division.

A spokesperson told iTnews that Finance made the decision to “consolidate ICT responsibilities into one division rather than have them spread over two” now that the last of its ICT procurement responsibilities have moved to the Digital Transformation Agency.

Sheridan will remain responsible for largely the same internal ICT and whole-of-government ICT networks, systems, and online services provided by the agency that he was in his former role.

These include the intra government communications network (ICON), the central budget management system, the ministerial communications network and the whole-of-government content management system govCMS.

He will also lead the development of the parliamentary expense management system, which will replace the many paper-based systems that are currently used by senators, members and their staff to lodge entitlements.

Sheridan has already said the system will be built as iteratively as possible in line with the Digital Transformation Agency’s digital design standard.