Management Toolkit

UK government 'needs more CIOs'

Kablenet.com

Published: 08 Sep 2004 11:30 BST

Ian Watmore made his first public speech in the role at the Oracle Open World Conference on Monday.

He said there is a need to get chief information officers in central government working together more effectively.

"We want to help the chief information officers of government," Watmore said.

"There are several people with that post, but not in every government department. This is something we need to change."

"We want to create a team of people so they can work together as a unit."

He said the post of chief information officer should be at senior board level with the responsibility for delivering information and IT strategies for their departments.

This reflects one of the differences Watmore said he sees between his role and that of the former e-envoy Andrew Pinder. He described his position as "more analogous to that of a group CIO in a large conglomerate".

This is one of four key priorities Watmore identified for his job of helping to deliver electronic public services. The others are:

Working with the rest of government to create information and IT strategies that work within areas and when joined together.
Helping government create policies and frameworks in which IT strategies can be implemented.
Working in partnership with the Office of Government Commerce to manage relationships with the private sector.

Watmore said the two other main elements of his role would be to help improve the effectiveness of government, placing the customer at the heart of its affairs, and helping the drive for efficiency.