Joe Harley, CIO for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will retire in the Spring of 2012.

Harley has been CIO for the DWP for seven years and justlast year was promoted to Government CIOreplacing John Suffolk.

In a statement from DWP the CIO said:

“It’s been a great honour and a privilege to have served the Department and Government over the years. It’s been a hugely fulfilling experience. I am proud to have made some contribution to improving Public Services for the benefit of the citizen and the tax payer.”

Thanking him for his work as a CIO Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Harley had been “instrumental in building reform and modernising” the approach to technology at the Whitehall department. DWP Permanent Secretary Robert Devereux said Harley had been “pivotal in establishing commercial arrangements which give value for money, and in the delivery of major changes to IT underpinning services which are critical for millions of people”.

Ex-CIO and now Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary Ian Watmore said:”Joe has accomplished great things in his time as Government CIO, having created and published a transformational ICT Strategy, along with plans of how it will be implemented.”

DWP said the process for replacing Harley as its departmental CIO will begin straight away and the Cabinet Office will begin a separate recruitment process to find the next government CIO. The Cabinet Office is already seeking a replacement for Deputy Goverment CIO Bill McCluggage who went vendor side earlier this month.

CIO Profile: DWP and UK Government CIO Joe Harley brings a boardroom ethos to public-sector IT