15 December 2005
The Prime Minister has been pleased to approve the appointment of Ian Watmore, currently Government Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Head of the eGovernment Unit, as head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. This follows an open competition to succeed Sir Michael Barber. Mr Watmore’s appointment is at permanent secretary level.
In this role, Mr Watmore will lead the drive to deliver the Prime Minister’s top public service priorities and act as his key advisor on delivery. Additionally, he will be at the forefront of the Cabinet Secretary’s mission to improve the delivery capability of the civil service as well as retaining overall management responsibility for his successor Chief Information Officer.
Notes for Editors
1. Mr Watmore, 47, has been Government Chief Information Officer and Head of eGovernment since September 2004. Prior to that he was Managing Director of Accenture UK from 2000. Mr Watmore will continue to report directly to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell. He will also continue to have managerial responsibility for the e-Government Unit and will oversee the appointment of his successor as Chief Information Officer, who will report to him. A full biography of Mr Watmore is attached.
2. The Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU) was established in 2001 with a remit to strengthen the Government’s ability to deliver the Prime Minister’s key public service priorities. The PMDU works closely in partnership with Number 10, other parts of the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and other stakeholder Departments in order to assess delivery and provide advice and guidance on ways to achieve step-change improvements in performance. Ian Watmore’s role covers the focus on the Prime Minister’s key delivery priorities, and the implementation of the Transformational Government strategy. The Delivery Unit also recently taken on the task of developing and, in due course, delivering reviews of Departments’ capabilities, as announced by Sir Gus in his appearance before the Public Administration Select Committee in October.
3. As well as these arrangements at the centre, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, with the agreement of the Prime Minister has recently announced some changes to the governance arrangements for the civil service. A more transparent, more flexible set of arrangements will operate in future. The Civil Service Management Board will be replaced with a Permanent Secretaries Management Group on which all first Permanent Secretaries will be represented. It will be supported by a small Steering Group which will meet more frequently. The groups, both chaired by Sir Gus O’Donnell, will focus on a wide range of issues of relevance across the Civil Service. More details are available on the Cabinet Office website.
Ian Watmore
Ian Watmore, 47, has been Government CIO and Head of eGovernment since September 2004. In that time he has led the transformation of the Office of the e-Envoy into a strategically focused e-Government Unit, completed a strategy for the Prime Minister on the transformation of government, launched the new Government IT Profession and set up a public sector shared services team. His leadership role in developing the strategy ‘Transformational Government, enabled by technology (opens in new window)’ was recognised in November 2005 by Computing Magazine who honoured him with a special award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to UK IT’.
He joined the Civil Service in September 2004 from Accenture where he was UK Managing Director (full career history available on the CIO website (opens in new window).
In a personal capacity Ian is on the Board of the English Institute for Sport, a Lottery and Sport England funded body focused on helping to prepare high performance athletes for the Olympics and other major sporting events. He is a passionate Arsenal supporter and married with four sons.
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