Department of Human Services seeks CIO

The Department of Human Services is seeking a CIO following the recent announcement of its ICT chief’s, John Wadeson, retirement.

The department posted the advertisement for the role on Thursday last week, stating it was looking for a Canberra-based CIO to implement a new IT strategy.

The department, which announced its consolidation with Centrelink and Medicare in 2009, said the new CIO will be responsible for the integration of ICT infrastructure for all Human Service Agencies and the new CIO will lead the transformation and modernisation of its ICT systems.

“The CIO will be responsible for the integration of ICT infrastructure for all for all Human Services Agencies … and [will be] driving the transformation and modernisation of the ICT Systems,” the advertisement said.

According to the ad, the CIO will also be responsible for 55,00 desktops, 2650 IT staff, 8.5 billion annual transactions, and five million registered online and phone users.

Outgoing technology head, John Wadeson, spoke to CIO Australia last year, and said that the position had its challenges, thanks to the consolidation with Medicare Australia and Centrelink.

“When problems do occur and the boards fill up with red your productivity may well go below zero as you start to reflect on the perils of being a CIO,” Wadeson said.

“To make matters worse this is when you will hear from many of the business people that you have not run into since the last Christmas party.”

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