HMRC finally seeks replacement for CDIO Mark Dearnley with £180,000 salary on offer

The HMRC CDIO will lead a 2,200 strong department and manage a budget of more than £800m

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is finally looking to hire a chief digital and information officer to replace Mark Dearnley, who left the organisation at the end of last year.

HMRC is offering a salary of up to £180,000 for the job, which Mike Potter, director of digital transformation, had been covering on an interim basis.

The job advert states that HMRC is looking to recruit a new director-general CDIO, in what it described as a "substantial and challenging role with significant involvement in the government's digital agenda as well as leading on HMRC's digital strategy".

The CDIO will lead a 2,200-people strong department and manage a budget of more than £800m.

The selected candidate will shape and transform the way HMRC works, it added, helping it to develop the capability to provide better online services to the taxpayer and customer, and to achieve faster and more effective models of delivery at optimal cost.

Applicants must show that they have the ability to engage and lead people, while HMRC wants to position itself in what it called "the cross government agenda" - playing a full role across Whitehall and supporting smaller government departments.

HMRC said it wanted a candidate with a proven track record of successfully leading a large-scale IT division, with high-level digital strategy expertise gained from a multi-channel business.

"He or she will possess board level leadership experience of driving an extensive and challenging change programme across large, complex and multi-functional private or public sector organisations," the job advert reads.

"They will have proven ability to challenge, influence and debate as is befitting of a director-general level role," it continued.

HMRC said that experience was likely to be drawn from a previous CIO role or equivalent in a similar large, complex and multi-dimensional organisation.

Applications close on 5 May and HMRC has retained Russell Reynolds Associates to assist with the appointment.

HMRC is undergoing huge changes and former CDIO Dearnley had led the organisation's move away from its £800m-a-year Aspire outsourcing contract - the largest single ICT contract across UK government. The organisation hopes it will be one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world by 2020.

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