Government CTO Liam Maxwell recruits army of senior IT leaders to manage new contracts

Public sector hiring IT specialists to bring lost IT skills back in-house, says Maxwell

Government chief technology officer Liam Maxwell claims that central government has become the place to work for ambitious IT professionals, as he bids to recruit an army of IT leaders to oversee new public sector IT projects as a slew of major contracts come to an end.

Already, says Maxwell, more than 100 senior IT "leaders" with a track record of delivering major projects in the private sector have been recruited to fill a central government IT skills gap. Furthermore, Maxwell wants to hire many more, particularly as mega-contracts such as HMRC's multi-billion pound Aspire outsourcing contract draw to a close.

"It's time to change the way that people work with technology [in the public sector] to move away from the black box - to start multi-sourcing and to take back control of our destiny," said Maxwell. "The main thing is really to be in charge and take control of our own destiny in IT."

Earlier this year, Maxwell used a keynote speech at IP Expo to claim that government needed to "reset its relationship with IT", and in the process make it better, more modern, more joined-up and cheaper, too.

Part of the problem Maxwell identified was a lack of experienced leadership over IT and outsourced contracts which, he hopes, will be overcome by a new model that places directly employed specialists in charge.

"We spent 25 years exporting our skills to the private sector and now we are hiring people back in. We have hired more than 100 senior leaders in technology in the last year and you will see a lot more of that [in the future]," said Maxwell.

These leaders are joining because central government IT is a good place to work, he added.

"People are seeing that the government is pretty much the most progressive place to work in technology in the country. The impact you can have is great. The freedom you have got to think and work properly is great, and people are loving coming here."

Indeed, he continued, the staff that have been recruiting have swapped "lucrative careers" in the private sector in order to work in central government IT leadership "because the opportunity is so good".

As contracts wind down, Maxwell's strategy is that central government IT should be more "multi-sourced", eschewing the kind of long-term, mega-outsourcing contracts that gave birth to the Aspire contract in HMRC. Indeed, HMRC is one of the key departments in which new IT leaders are currently being recruited in order to smooth the path from Aspire to the new multi-sourced model.

However, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), cross-examining Maxwell at the end of October, questioned whether Maxwell and the Cabinet Office will be able to recruit staff of sufficient calibre in time.