No question about this week's big news: the announcement that government and DWP chief information officer Joe Harley is to step down. It follows soon after the announcement that his deputy in the pan-government role, Bill McCluggage, is also leaving, and throws up questions not just about the successor, but on the nature of the position and what will be demanded of the new person.
The Cabinet Office has already indicated that it will look for a successor to Harley, but it could be that the role is now moving closer to that of a chairman than a chief executive. There have been signs of this already, with Harley combining the job with that of CIO for the Department for Work and Pensions, and McCluggage having been much more active as a spokesman for the office.
It's notable that in the recent implementation plan for the Government ICT Strategy, and in the sub-strategy documents, there was more emphasis on the CIO Delivery Board than the chief officer in regard to the governance structures. The government CIO has an obvious role in leading the board, but the delivery of strategy has now been widely disseminated into groups and senior responsible owners working on projects such as the G Cloud, technical standards and green ICT. This could pave the way for the government CIO to retain oversight and report up to the minister, but delegate everything else.
Add to this the fact that the new person would not have to devote a big effort to devising a strategy; it's now in place and is set to provide the foundation for government policy for five years or more.
In this case, there would be a good chance of the next leader repeating Harley's trick of the past year in combining the job with that of CIO of another department. This would increase the likelihood of one of the high profile characters in government ICT – such as Phil Pavitt at HM Revenue and Customs or Andy Nelson at the Ministry of Justice – stepping into the job while continuing to see through major change programmes in a single department. The Cabinet Office indication that it is also looking to replace McCluggage, thereby reducing the burden on the new person at the top, increases the likelihood.
Even if Harley's replacement does not hold another departmental job, or comes from outside the civil service, it is likely to be less of a hands on role than that taken by his predecessors. The odds are in favour of a chairman rather than a chief executive.
Mark Say is editor of Guardian Government Computing.
This article is published by Guardian Professional. For weekly updates of news, debate and best practice on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.
