Jos Creese has been CIO of Hampshire County Council for over a decade and is a non-executive director of SOCITM, the public sector IT group. Hampshire County Council CIO Jos Creese believes the public sector could learn more about digital tools and social media from the private sector to improve local government services. When did you start your current role?2001 Have you completed an MBA?No Technology strategy and spending What is the major transformational IT project that has been recently completed, or is underway at your organisation?'Public sector to public sector' shared services. This is to drive public services efficiency and improvement enabled by technology. Not only does it reduce costs and risk but it proved a new opportunity to join up services around the public's need (such as health and social care) Examples include:- joint working corporate services and integrated teams with Hampshire Fire and Rescue and Hampshire constbulary delivering full employee self-service- Fully intregrated and hosted curriculem and adminstrative IT services, launched and delivered to c100 schools and growing- 1600 community services websites hosted,-  public services networks shared with all the boroughs, districts, and uniary councils,-  IT solutions provided to or shared with three other County Councils (OCC, DCC and IoW)- Joint working with Heath Services in Hampshire What impact will it/does it have on the organisation?Significant transformation of customer service and more importantly cost of delivery. About 30% of all IT delivery activity is now fully funded through external partnership. This delivers busniess growth, retention of scarce IT skills, resilience capacity, commercial acumen and contribution to fixed overheads. What new strategic technology deals has your organisation struck and with whom?A range of new technology servcies designed to reduce cost of ownership and to make better use of major investments made in IT. Examples include Microsoft Cloud (30,000 school accounts with Office 365) and SAP (new protfolio of tools to deliver complete employee business services on miobile devices for multiple organsiakions). But in practice all of our main contracts have been renegotied to drive maximum savings in the face of cuts. Above all we are putting in place partnerhip models with the private sector to support our business growth ambitions – VMB for example are central to our wider ambitions to growth the range and reach of the Public Services Network. These are not like outsourcing or simple commissioning models, but genuine integrated working where reputations are made together. Name your strategic technology suppliers?IBM, SAP, Microsoft, VMB, .. to name but a few What is the IT budget?c.£42m pa IT operational spend compared to the revenue or company turnover as a percentage?2.3% What is the strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year?To deliver major transformation enabled by IT in:- Customer Access and channel shift- Reducing the cost of delivering services – admionstrative and business overheads through digital means- Joint working with other Public services organsaions – especially around the Integrated Business Centre being developed Operational IT delivery is a secondary aim which flows from the above Transformation achievements Would you describe the CIO role as a transformation leader in your organisation?Yes, in collaboration with business and service leaders. Describe the transformations you have led / been involved in, how did they transform operations, customer experience or the organisation?I am invovled in all of the major transformational programmes in the council, most of which are technolgoy enabled. Leadership is never down to one person – it is my role to: – advocate and set a vision for a digital organisation- facilitate and leading through others- de-risk delivery by ensuring the right governance, analysis,understanding of IT capability and IT delivery Beyond technology, can you describe a business transformation programme that you own or contribute to?Workstyle for Hampshire – delivering hot-desking and mobile and flexible working. We have the majority of employees using BYOD, secure home working or dropping in to any of our offices or those of our partners (I regualrly work in one of our district councilsusing our IT services). Our Integrated Business Centre being delivered in April 2014 is the next step on this journey, launching a full range of HR, finance, procurement and other employee transactions to 50,000 employees and partners using mobile devices. What key technologies are being considered to enable transformation?A wide range, but notably: – thin client everywhere- shared public services network (HPSN)- re-purposing SAP technogy for mobile access to all employees- social media (Yammer, Twiter and Facebook notably) for customer nd staff interaction What percentage of your applications / infrastructure is run from the Cloud?10% – growing How is the use by employees of their own technology, use of mobiles and social networking impacting operations, customer experiences or the organisation at present?Smart phones and tablets are growing, but us of home PCs to access corpoarte systems and information is well-embedded and has been for over a decade, with 2factor authoentication and thin-client secure sessions fro over 5000 employees Do you have a plan in place for how to deal with shadow IT and BYOD. How do you influence and engage executives, place the right controls around employee choice and engage with the organisation on this issue?Yes.- Shadow IT no longer exists – IT is all centralised (peolpe and budgets) but with shared governances to ensure IT is not out of touch and bypassed. this is currently working well- BYOD is a high priority although roll-out is moderated by recently national government compliance regulation Where do you seek transformational inspiration from?Everywhere and anywhere! I regularly work with private companies (product positioning), public services organsations (mentoring , CIO Council chair) and organsations such as the BCS, TechUK, Socitm and government departments. . Deloitte is a private secotr partner of the Council and provide valuable commercial insight. I am a trustee of an Education IT charity (Eduserv) and recently elected to the BCS deputy presidency – these roles provide invaluable vision and access to innovative leaders. But above, all I take transfromational inspiration from my peers in the Council and their drive to improve services and their creativeity in how they can see things can inmprove. My job is to help them make that possibility a reality. The CIO role in the business Who do they report to?Director of Corpoprate Services Does the CIO have a seat on the board?No How often do you meet with the CEO?Monthly Does your organisation have a digital leader and what is the difference in their responsibilities to yours?I am the digital leader The IT department How many staff make up the IT team?(What is the split between in-house/outsourced staff)c.400 Describe the CIO’s management team, do you have direct reports that develop the relationship and services between the business and IT?Three direct reports:- Chief Technical Services Officer . .c150 staff- Head of Programmes and Projects  . ..c220 staff- Lead Business Partner .. 20 staff Plus professional leads for HR and Finance are on the IT management team How many log-in accounts do you issue across you organisation?c16,000 internally, plus 30,000 for schools, plus c.15,000 for partners What is the primary technology platform?SAP