Perception of government IT at "all-time low"

New UK government CIO Ian Watmore has admitted that a decade of headlines about high-profile IT disasters has left the public perception of government IT "at an all-time low".

But speaking exclusively in an interview with silicon.com Watmore outlined his plans to change this view, including the creation of a "joined-up" government IT strategy and the recruitment of a team of "heavy hitters" to work across the various major projects.

The IT strategy will be developed by Watmore's CIO council of 21 central and local government heads of IT, which met for the first time last month.

"We are tackling some of the most complicated IT projects on the planet. They are complicated because they are stretching the boundaries of what technology does and government is a more complex environment to work in than it is in the private sector," he said.

In addition to the CIO council Watmore hopes to assemble a team of five to 10 experienced "heavy hitters" with a roving brief to work on whatever the biggest government IT project of the day is.

"There's no point me doing this with people who have medium level of experience on this. This has got to be really heavy-hitting type experience," he said.

His plans also include recreating a genuine career framework for IT professionals in government, though he admits the public sector can't compete with private companies on pay.

"It's not necessarily the be-all and end-all for a lot of people in this industry. I didn't exactly take this job for the pay. You've got that brilliant mixture of challenge between being in difficult projects and programmes which, if you have a masochistic streak like me, you like doing. But equally at the end of it if you can really help to transform a frontline public service through your programme then that is very appealing," he said.

Read the full interview with Ian Watmore here, in which he further discusses government IT failures, why the Scissor Sisters are on his iPod and why IT projects are like a good disco.