UK: Government CIO John Suffolk to resign at the end of 2010

November 17th, 2010
John Suffolk

The British Government’s Chief Information Officer John Suffolk is to leave his position at the end of 2010. No decision has yet been made on whether he will be replaced, but Ian Watmore, chief operating officer of the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG), will become chair of the CIO Council until further notice, Kable.co.uk reported.

The Cabinet Office was working on a new Government ICT strategy and had released a draft version of this strategy in February. But since then, the Cabinet Office had forbidden IT talks to the departments officials, fueling speculation that a major change could come.

John Suffolk was an advocate of the G-cloud system, as well as the Government Applications Store, which was presented in the draft version of the Government ICT Strategy. His departure raises questions about these two projects, as publicservice.co.uk points out.

Further information:

  • the draft version of the Government ICT Strategy
  • John Suffolk’s position about the G-Cloud on his personal blog
  • an article about the Government Applications Store prototype on Kable.co.uk
    • http://wegf.org/2010/11/uk-digital-strategy-shift-maude/ Big shift in the UK’s digital strategy « World e.gov forum

      [...] after the announcement that the government CIO John Suffolk would resign at the end of the year 2010, Jayne Nickalls, chief executive of the online governmental portal [...]