Barry Hooper has been named as the lead official for the new Commercial Digital Centre of Excellence for UK central government.
He has announced the appointment on LinkedIn, saying the new body will be working with the Government Commercial Function, Crown Commercial Service, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Government Digital Service to focus on digital architecture, applications, suppliers and market competition.
“Our aim is to substantially improve service delivery, enhance user satisfaction and drive efficiency, leveraging the new procurement regulations,” he said.
The creation of the Commercial Digital Centre of Excellence is one of the features in the Blueprint for modern digital government, published last January, which stated the body would “identify opportunities for further reform and improvements needed to enable tech start-ups, scale-up and SMEs to access government contracts”.
Hooper has been director of the Government Commercial Function in the Cabinet Office since September of last year, and was previously chief commercial officer and head of profession at the Ministry of Justice between 2015-24.
