Rob Thompson, the former head of engineering at the Department for Work and Pensions (DwP), has joined the Home Office as chief technology officer (CTO).
He will be responsible for providing the strategic direction for engineering, technology and architecture across the Home Office. This will include making sure the Home Office delivers systems and services in a “modern, value-creating way that leverages our intellectual and financial capital to create better public services.”
Thompson announced the move in a blog post, where he said DwP and the Home Office share many of the same challenges, such as:
- “improving services by making them more digital.”
- “making data core to all our activities. building.”
- “running well architected systems.”
- “saving the taxpayer money.”
- “doing it all at scale, safely and securely.”
He said that his goal will be “to put some structure and focus into how we develop our technology strategy”.
Prior to join the Home Office, Thompson worked for four years at the DWP, where he headed up a team of 700 engineers and the department’s Universal Credit technology team.
Before joining the civil service in 2014, he worked for 23 years in the private sector. But he “fell in love with the civil service at DWP… the 4 years I spent there working with such a creative, committed and talented team completely converted me to a life of public service”.
The new CTO said that he will be working with different types and sizes of projects and programmes to see “where I can help,” he added.,“I’ll also spend time with my colleagues on the senior management team to further understand our challenges”.
