Jess McEvoy to take over as acting programme director of Government’s online identity assurance service
A further change of senior personnel at the Government Digital Service (GDS) has been announced, with Janet Hughes (pictured) as leaving director of the GOV.UK identity assurance programme.
Announcing her departure from the end of this week in a blogpost, Hughes said that Jess McEvoy will be taking over as acting programme director.
The news comes two weeks after the sudden departure of Stephen Foreshew-Cain as head of the GDS. He and Hughes had worked closely together and their departures follow rumours of stiff opposition to the organisation in other parts of the Civil Service.
However, there will be a degree of continuity with McEvoy having been involved in the programme for three years, most recently as head of policy and engagement.
Hughes says in the blog that the time has come for her to “move on to new challenges” after Verify passed its live service assessment and the team began to work with local authorities on making it available for wider use.
She has been in the role since June 2013, taking the service through to its launch for a number of central government online services, before which she had been policy content coordinator in the GDS since August 2012.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
