Government to appoint IT chief

The role of the eEnvoy is to be replaced by a head of egovernment charged with co-ordinating cross-departmental IT strategies and developing a stronger customer focus for online public services.

But experts say Whitehall must not use the appointment as an opportunity to shirk individual responsibility for technology-enabled change.

When eEnvoy Andrew Pinder's contract ends in April, the Office of the eEnvoy will be wound down and its online services role transferred to a newly-created Office of eGovernment (OeG).

The head of egovernment will be similar to a private sector chief information officer (CIO), says Pinder.

Responsibilities will include providing government-wide IT leadership and developing internet services that are no longer based around individual products or departments.

The job will also be involved with the civil service Efficiency Review being conducted by Peter Gershon, chief executive of Whitehall buying arm the Office of Government Commerce, and the strategy currently under discussion for a common pan-departmental back office infrastructure.

'As the civil service becomes more commercially-minded it is appropriate to have something more like a group head of IT,' said Pinder.

The appointee is likely to be either a senior partner in a consultancy or someone running IT for a big private sector organisation.

The danger is that the challenges of co-ordination between departments lead to the new role taking on too much responsibility, says government IT expert Jim Norton.

'So long as the OeG doesn't think "we are building a cross-departmental system so why don't we build it and then force departments to use it." It must be the guardian of how things link together, but the work must be done in individual departments,' he said.

John Higgins, director general of supplier body Intellect, says the move is welcome because it sharpens the focus on using IT to better underpin public services.

'But we mustn't forget that technology is about achieving business change, so permanent secretaries mustn't regard this as an opportunity to abdicate responsibility to the central CIO,' he said.

Technology issues have become crucial to all departments, says trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt.

'As eMinister, I can see how much higher IT-related issues have become on the agendas of my Cabinet colleagues,' she said.