by CIO Staff

Funding Agency CIO steps up to Department for Education

News
Aug 15, 20142 mins
CareersGovernmentIT Leadership

The Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency (EFA) will now share a CIO with the announcement that Adrian Tucker is the new CIO for the Department for Education following the decision by Rachel Murphy-Cooper to resign earlier this week.

Tucker moved into the public sector in May 2013 as CIO for the EFA, a body formed in 2012 by the current government which distributes state funding into education for three- to 19-year-olds and is part of the Department for Education.

On his LinkedIn page Tucker said of his new role: “The role will allow me to ensure the department has ICT fit for the future utilising modern technology and becoming digital by default. It will allow the department to get more out of its IT whilst offering a lean footprint to give best value to Government.”

He also said: “Following a successful period in the Education Funding Agency I know [sic] take responsibility for the ICT in the whole of the Department for Education, whilst keeping responsibility for the Education Funding Agency IT delivery.”

The EFA manages the estates of schools and colleges and is a merger of the Young People’s Learning Agency and the Partnerships for Schools. Formed in April 2012 the merged department is in effect part of the Coalition government’s “bonfire of the quangos”.

Prior to joining the EFA in may 2013 Tucker was a retail consultant with mobile telecoms giant Vodafone; prior to that pharmaceutical wholesaler and retailer Alliance Boots, T-Mobile, Powerhouse and Arcadia.

Murphy-Cooper joined the Department for Education in October 2013 and told this title she was “running a huge transformation programme for DFE”. She added that this included stabilisation of the core infrastructure, improving the service with the implementation of ITSM and Resource Management Systems and the design and implementation of the Target Operating Model that would “right size the department’s IT”.

In May 2014 the Ministry of Defencereplaced its CIO within five months of the appointment, Yvonne Ferguson, formerly a CIO with the Royal Mail, began her career with the Whitehall department in January and was replaced by May.