According to David Wilde, Public sector CIO, there should be less number of heads of IT in government. Out of his own interest and attitude, David strongly favors lessening out the ranks of CIO in government for reforming the way public services are delivered today. Wilde who was CIO at Westminster City Council is now CIO at Essex County Council wishes to see lesser number of CIOs who would take responsibility for a large number of public sector organizations. He told silicon.com that this change would prove to be very powerful and advantageous to public service delivery.

Wilde strongly believes that a CIO in charge of different local authorities can easily help these authorities to handle information and at the same time guarantees that It systems are interoperable. This is perhaps an important step in case public bodies need to coordinate front line service delivery or set up shared service centers so as to take charge of internal processes like HR. he added, information governance and information sharing is the one among the potential challenges of public sector. This challenge is deeply motivated by a fact that systems and technologies are built at organizational level and not at geographical level. Barriers can be effectively dealt with if the CIOs consider issues like benefits of information sharing while balancing against the duty to guard that information at geographical level.

Wilde also favors the single CIO working over a range of authorities including councils, health trusts and voluntary organizations if they are given the crossover in the kind of front line services offered by different public sector as well as charitable bodies.  If single CIO coordinates IT strategy across different belts, it would be helpful for authorities to share the cost of IT services and infrastructure. Moreover this will help in building up of delivery partnerships existing between local authorities. An example to this statement is the local authorities in Hampshire and various regions in UK entering into public services network agreement according to which regional authorities depends on common network services and infrastructure.

David Wilde also thinks London is the city with greatest scope for merging public sector CIO roles where he believes should be fourfold fall in public sector IT leaders. He added London needs just 10 CIOs not 40 to 60 CIOs. Well, Wilde’s role of CIO at Westminster City Council might be one of the first to go but council has yet to make decisions.