German government to appoint a national CIO

Cornelia Wels-Maug, Ovum

The German government plans to appoint a national Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the first time. More details about the appointment will be forthcoming on the second national IT Summit in Hannover in December.

Comment Ovum: This latest initiative is a response to the fact that Germany is still lacking behind the international community when it comes to the adoption of information and Communication Technology (ICT) for the purposes of public administration (on federal and state level alike) and the range of available e-government offerings to its citizens. Furthermore, the exchange of information is often hampered by the fact that not all ICT technologies used on federal as well as state levels are intra-compatible. It will be the responsibility of the newly appointed CIO to coordinate the federal IT activities, including e-government offerings.

There is not much time left between now and 10 December, the date of the second IT Summit, to clearly define the role. Moreover, if the CIO is not equipped with adequate authority, she/he will hardly be able to bring about the required changes. Furthermore, any changes made cannot be confined to just the federal level, and this again highlights the underlying conflict between the federal and state authority. The accomplishment of the long awaited federalism reform will also help in this respect. For now, the CIO, as an additional element of the role, will work to gain the cooperation between those two camps.

To help with the process of formulating the role of the CIO and finding its place in the government - it has yet to be established whether the CIO will be part of the chancellery or of one of the ministry (possibly the Ministry of the Interior) - the government has looked for a usable blueprint. To get a better understanding of the multiple aspects the role might involve, the government consulted several renowned IT management consultants on the role of CIOs in the industry last week.

But the idea of a national CIO is not new. National CIOs, for instance, can be found in Canada, Australia, Austria and the UK. The UK's current CIO, John Suffolk, to take a European neighbour which has a very advanced public sector when it comes to the adoption of IT, might be used as a role model: one of his key responsibilities is deciding upon which elements of a common infrastructure for the public sector should be developed and how those common elements should be managed. This is embedded into the execution of a long-term vision in how public services can be shaped in order to provide efficient, effective services designed around the needs of citizens and businesses.

It looks like the German government is not as advanced in formulating such a long-term vision, but the actual creation of a CIO is a step towards this.