The Cabinet Office has appointed Conall Bullock as its first ever chief digital officer. Bullock has led IT operations at several charities, including Mencap, Scope, and Jewish Care. He served as interim IT director at the Chartered Insurance Institute then housing association Bracknell Forest Homes, before setting up his own IT consultancy ‘XcIT’ in 2012. He will be responsible for all of the department’s digital and technology services and will report directly to permanent secretary Richard Heaton, who announced his appointment on Twitter yesterday. Bullock will combine three previously separate roles: chief technology officer, chief information officer and chief digital officer. Bullock’s first task will be to set up and lead five new in-house teams: one for internal digital engagement, an agile delivery team, an architecture unit, a service operations team to ensure continuity and a business operations team managing suppliers and security. His role will cover core IT for internal business units, common technology services for all users, shared services with other departments and citizen-facing digital services, according to the job advert. He will be paid about £90,000 a year and will be tasked with “dramatically” reducing dependence on existing legacy systems and contracts, it added. The department is mid-way through an internal technology transformation programme to replace its ‘Flex’ agreement with Fujitsu, which expired in January. Instead of replacing the single provider deal with individual ‘Tower’ contracts, the Cabinet Office is building internal teams to run its IT in-house, led by the CDO. Government digital chief Mike Bracken welcomed the appointment, telling Bullock: “Enjoy your new role in Cabinet Office. Delighted you are here.” Bracken recently added the newly-created role of government chief data officer to his list of responsibilities. He will be responsible for developing data standards, promoting open data, encouraging better use of data in government and boosting data skills in the civil service. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe