DWP's CTO quits to join crowdsourcing specialist

Department of Work and Pensions' chief technology officer has left to join software vendor Spigit

The Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP's) chief technology officer, James Gardner, has left to join enterprise collaboration vendor Spigit, to oversee its international expansion.

At DWP, Gardner ran the technology strategy, innovation and architecture teams.

While at the DWP, Gardner got the IT team to spend a day and half "crowdsourcing" the development of the technology strategy, making around 200 decisions and producing a 50,000-word strategy document.

Gardner's new employer, Spigit, is a specialist in enterprise crowdsourcing.

Commenting on his time at the DWP, Gardner said: "The level of scrutiny of every decision, the constant pressure from systems and processes, and all the other apparatus of government takes some getting used to."

Before working for the DWP, he was head of innovation and research at Lloyds Banking Group, and worked in various management roles at Microsoft.

The DWP could not comment on its plans to replace Gardner at the time of writing.