UK appoints Government-wide CIO

The UK Cabinet Office has appointed a new government-wide CIO and is on the hunt for a an ICT director to drive open source and open standards within the public sector.

Joe Harley, who will retain his current responsibilities as CIO for the Department for Work and Pensions, will replace former Government CIO John Suffolk who left last November.

Harley will coordinate efforts to bring cloud computing to public sector IT and will also be responsible for implementing its hardware and software consolidation program.

The UK will also appoint a Director of ICT Futures, tasked with jazzing up government IT using agile methods and driving the adoption of open source and open standards.

“This role will be responsible for implementing new ways of designing and developing systems using agile methods and skunkworks environments; increasing the drive towards open standards and open source software; change the terrain for SMEs to enter the government marketplace; and maintain a horizon scan of future technologies and methods,” the UK Cabinet Office said.