By silicon.com, 30 May 2006 17:25
Just how much is an IT director worth these days? If you're multinational supermarket giant Tesco then it's around £2.2m per year. If you're looking for someone to run a £7bn national IT programme in the NHS it's around £280,000.
Tesco's global IT and operations director Philip Clarke picked up the £2.2m performance-related package last year for his role helping the supermarket chain post record profits of £2.25bn.
NHS IT director general Richard Granger picked up his £280,000 for overseeing an ambitious £7bn - £6.2bn if you take out the digital picture archiving project - national programme to modernise the UK's health service.
Both of those IT directors probably have a significant impact on the daily lives of millions of UK citizens, albeit in very different ways.
But which is more important - enough toilet roll being in stock and on the shelf for your weekly shop (and satisfying your shareholders) or a hospital doctor being able to access your electronic medical record at the touch of a button in an emergency?
Of course there are issues with the delivery of the NHS IT programme. The care record project is running some two-and-a-half years late and the local trusts are expected to fork out around £14bn from their own cash-strapped budgets to upgrade their IT infrastructure.
Yet it highlights the huge gulf in pay between the top-earning private sector CIOs and those in the public sector. And is the job at Tesco really 10 times harder than the NHS IT job?
There are other benefits to working in the civil service. Many cite a sense of 'public duty' or - as Granger calls it "moral motivation" - while the pension scheme and generous holiday allowance can make it an attractive package.
But the question remains whether the public sector can really attract the talent needed to run the ambitious national multi-billion pound IT programmes that this country's politicians seem so besotted with. The lesson, as seen with Tesco's record profits, is that you get what you pay for.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
You have missed the big difference. The CIO of Tesco is part of the top management team that decides group policy - not just how to implement what has already been decided by Ministers and their advisors - regardless of practicality.
2. misceng
Judging by my local Tesco IT is not well run. The stock of some items is inadequate and there seems to be a gross imbalance between shelf space occupied and the demand for items. The excuse I get that it is only a middle sized store so it cannot stock everything is feeble. Proper stock management could increase variety on the same shelf space.
3. Mick George
Perhaps you ought to see Philip Clarke trying to deliver his role within the stifling confines of the NHS before making such glib comments as "you get what you pay for" Having an NHS employee as a partner, I can categorically tell you that the above statement is about as far from the truth as it can be
4. Ed Willcox
The difference is that Granger will get a large pay off if he fails, and Philip Clarke has earned his by way of performance.
5. Frank Page
If a major Tesco's IT project was over two years behind would the director of IT still have a job? - That only hapens in the Civil Service.
6. anonymous
IT at Tesco is ultimately judged by the actions of millions of consumers and is created in the face of ongoing competition and market feedback. IT in NPfIT is created in a monopoly provider environment. Salaries reflect value delivered not effort expended. Successful businesses develop repeatable systems to deliver what their customers want i.e. are demand driven. NPfIT is necessarily supply driven as scarce medical resources are allocated via cash limits without a price mechanism. It is an attempt to impose repeatable systems on a vast organisation with hugely variable product lines (unlike Tesco) and is bound to fail or run hugely over budget. The customer and taxpayer have no say.
7. Nigel Holder
Pay peanuts - get monkeys. THE NHS I.T. project has purchased massive quatnities of hardware and software before clarifying the requirements specification for the data architecture. A monumental blunder of seismic stupidity. Any project manager worth their salt gets the requirements absolutely squared away before letting contracts for bits of kit. It would not happen in Tesco.......
8. Peter Stewart
I think misceng is confusing IT capability with the use to which it is put. Tesco's operations or logistics management will determine stock holding policies at depot and store level, not IT management.
9. anonymous
If you are successful in achieving goals leading to profits and good fuctionality then why not pay the man. If you fail in getting the job in on time, the system working properly and it runs over budget sck them.
Straight forward principle in the real world unknown in the civil service.