CIOs needed to drive public service reforms

Local authorities need to formally establish a CIO role if they are to successfully deliver the government's public service reforms, according to a new report.

But the Society of IT Managers (Socitm) report, Modern Public Services: a role for change - the CIO as agent of transformation, says the CIO role is not well understood and doesn't easily fit in the local government arena.

The CIO role is now fairly well established in central government departments, with many represented on the CIO Council, but it is a different story in local government where the position does not exist in any of the 126 local authorities which responded to Socitm's annual IT trends survey last year.

But Socitm says the traditional head of ICT in local government is not equipped to lead and drive the IT-enabled Transformational Government reforms outlined by the Cabinet Office last year.

The Socitm report said: "The CIO role, therefore, needs to be clearly established as a full-time post, filled by someone with the required skills rather than by an enthusiastic amateur. The post requires a different skill-set to that of head of ICT. If heads of ICT wish to hold the CIO position, they need to acquire new skills."

One unnamed local authority deputy CEO argued: "The CIO and CTO are roles that exist in every local authority in the country. It is just that they are often not recognised clearly enough, not performed well enough, not sufficiently developed in concept and too often reside in the hands of the wrong people."

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Socitm supports the development of the US business school-style CTO/CIO team for local authorities, where the CTO has good process and cost management skills and can set common standards, and the CIO offers leadership, change management and communications skills.

Sir Michael Bichard, rector at the University of Arts in London, writing in the report, added: "It is inconceivable that public services will be transformed without the imaginative use of ICT and the effective management of information - and that puts the CIO at the heart of public service reform."