This article is more than 1 year old

Tory questions identify government's best paid CIOs

Health and DWP CIOs in the £99,960 and £205,000 band

Two chief information officers are in the civil service's highest standard pay band: health's Christine Connelly and work and pensions' Joe Harley.

Christine Connelly is employed on senior civil service pay band three, with a salary of between £99,960 and £205,000 for her permanent contract as the Department of Health's director general of informatics and CIO.

She is responsible for an annual budget of £1.5bn, one of the biggest in Whitehall, which includes the costs of the NHS National Programme for IT.

The other band three CIO revealed in responses to parliamentary written questions is Joe Harley at the Department for Work and Pensions. He is also responsible for one of the largest budgets, totalling £1.19bn this year.

Band three is the highest available in the senior civil service, although permanent secretaries, who head departments, are paid in a higher range from £139,740 to £273,250.

The information was requested by Conservative MP and shadow minister for business innovation and science Adam Afriyie. A spokesperson for his office said the questions were part of "routine information gathering".

CIOs in most departments have been placed on senior pay band two, paid between £81,600 and £160,000. They include the Department for Children, Schools and Families where the CIO is responsible for a budget of £44m; the Ministry of Justice (£242m budget); Department for International Development (£25m budget); the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (£160m budget); Communities and Local Government (£30.4m budget); the Ministry of Defence (£86.5m budget) and the Home Office (£5.1m budget).

Neither of the departments for Scotland and Wales has a CIO, while the Department for Transport splits the role between the director general and the director responsible for for issues including information and knowledge management, data security and ICT.

HM Treasury was the only department to report that its CIO, Karen Delafield, is on pay band one, which has a salary range of £57,300 to £116,000.

This article was originally published at Kable.

Kable's GC weekly is a free email newsletter covering the latest news and analysis of public sector technology. To register click here.

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like