This week Mike talks about the recruitment hub, the digital services framework, and G-Cloud 4. He also talks about Young Rewired State and welcomes several new starters to government.
Full transcript below:
Interviewer:
Hello Mike. What have we been up to at GDS this week?
Mike:
A lot. But the first thing I really want to talk about is recruitment. One of the big things this week, the big milestones, is getting the recruitment hub working to bring new digital talent into government. We’re recruiting all over the place, and building up teams with departments; HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs), DWP (Department for Work and Pensions), MoJ (Ministry of Justice) and elsewhere. But the biggest thing this week is we’ve now got 40 major senior digital roles to attract right across government; these are director generals, they are change agents, senior civil servants who are coming into government with senior positions to affect the digital change that’s in our digital strategy. They’re going to come into many places, but I guess the first one I’d like to welcome to government is Mark Dearnley. He was until recently the CIO (Chief Information Officer) at Vodafone, and he’s going to be coming and joining us as the Chief Digital Officer in HMRC. I’m delighted we’re getting this calibre of people coming through, and he’s the first of many, I hope.
Interviewer:
Excellent. We’ve also had big releases within GDS as well.
Mike:
Yes. The Digital Services Framework closed, and I’d like to firstly thank the team who’ve been working on that, Louis (Hyde) and Josh (Russell), everybody else who’s been working on getting new suppliers into government. This is a framework that’s aimed at getting companies with those skills that we need, those digital skills, to be more accessible to government. For too long, we’ve relied on too small a number of companies. We’re widening that up now. We’ve had a huge amount of interest; 280 suppliers for interest. The first 50 of those will come on in the first tranche of this, but we’ll renew it every six months. We’re delighted now that framework is coming on-stream and we can get these companies to work with government.
Interviewer:
We’ve also had a release from the G-Cloud team as well.
Mike:
We have; the G-Cloud team; yes. We took this on a little while ago. Big improvements to the tender process. Again, the framework means that the tender gets issued every six months. Well done Tony (Singleton) and Peter Middleton particularly. We’ve got new product management in there, and we’re simplifying this all the time for suppliers. I always say this: it’s not perfect, but it gets better with every release. Signalling the start of G-Cloud 4 is a big win this week.
Interviewer:
Lots of things going on outside of government as well, this week.
Mike:
Loads as usual. Biggest one for me was up in Birmingham at the Custard Factory. We helped Young Rewired State. It’s an organisation that does tremendous work. Emma (Mulqueeny) and the team there do a great deal in bringing young coders to get them to look at government and how to improve government services. We’ve actually recruited from that pool as a result over the years. So Jordan Hatch, who’s featured prominently in the press this week, he was there along with Linda (Humphries) and Mark - Mark O’Neil did some of the judging up in Birmingham. It’s a sort of UK-wide festival of code, and I’m delighted that we could help in some way.
Interviewer:
We’ve also had several new starters here at GDS.
Mike:
Yes, we’ve had six. We’re recruiting about one a day at the moment, both for us and across government. But if I can pick one out it’s Lee Longmore, who joined the GOV.UK team on the development side, so welcome to him and several other people.
Interviewer:
One goodbye as well.
Mike:
Yes, Sara. Sara Bowley has left us for a little while, while she goes away on maternity leave, so good luck to her. She’s a GOV.UK Delivery Manager, and we look to see her soon.
Interviewer:
Well, until next time.
Mike:
Onwards.
