The Cabinet Office is looking for new government chief digital officer to replace Joanna Davinson.
It has published a job advertisement for the £190,000 per year position, emphasising the role as the most senior in digital, data and technology in UK government, leading a team of around 200 specialists and SMEs in the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO).
It is a director general level job reporting up to Alex Chisholm, chief operating officer of the Civil Service.
The move marks the end of a relatively short time in the role for Davinson (pictured), who took over in April of last year as part of restructure of the digital, data and technology (DDaT) function for government. It is understood that this is line with the expectations in the Cabinet Office when she took the job.
She became head of the CDDO, responsible for strategy and monitoring the delivery of major programmes, while Tom Read took the lead of the Government Digital Service (GDS), with a trimmed back responsibility for focusing on the development of products, platforms and services.
The CDDO has gone public with a few initiatives in that time. Davinson has previously highlighted the creation of a sub-board for DDaT within the Civil Service Board, and other steps have included the publication of a transparency standard for algorithms and building a domain checking toolset for government bodies.
The Cabinet Office has emphasised in the job ad that the infrastructure is in place for DDaT to support departments in their transformation, along with an “appropriate budget” following the 2021 Spending Review.
It is aiming to complete the interview process for the job by the last week of April.
