The popularity of e-government has seen an unprecedented loosening of purse-strings when it comes to government IT spending – and this has made the role of the CIO in public agencies more important than ever, and more complex. Traditionally, in most countries, heads of technology departments were responsible for IT and e-government projects. However, as technology brought about disruptive changes in public sector operations and service delivery, governments came to appreciate the need for policy and strategic leadership that went beyond technology itself and focused instead on issues of change management and business process reengineering.
Following the lead of Canada and the United States, the region’s most advanced government IT establishments have been quick to establish the CIO position at a government agency level, and now more recently at a pan-governmental level. South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong have reaped considerable benefits from this institutionalisation of the strategic significance of government IT.
Leadership first, IT second
“The introduction of the CIO into Korea’s public sector is just one of the factors for government IT success in Korea. However it is a large factor, and in my experience contributed to the upgrading of the level of e-government throughout the country,” says Kijoo Lee, former Director of South Korea’s Ministry of Information and Communications.
The CIO system was introduced to the Korean civil service in 1998, a couple of years after the position became mandatory in US federal agencies. Prior to that time government informatisation was a ministerial role in Korea, and there was a National Informatisation Committee with a special fund to invest in e-enabling government processes. According to Lee, this resulted in a fragmented approach to building e-government infrastructure.
“Prior to the CIO position we had IT experts, at director level, in ministries. The problem here was that they didn’t have enough authority in the areas of budget and restructuring,” shares Lee. “The Minister of the Ministry of Information and Communications was the de facto government CIO, but this was handled as one of many pressing ministerial responsibilities.”
When CIOs were introduced into Korean ministries they were typically the third most senior person. They were given authority to allocate budget, manage staffing, and proceeded with the business reengineering process aggressively.
In determining the responsibilities of the government CIO position, the Korean authorities spent considerable time examining the functioning of their counterparts in the private sector, both in Korea and the United States.
“As the new role took off there was an explosion in the number of IT initiatives, particularly in terms of offering new citizen services. As a result the CIOs were ultimately responsible for executing initiatives. This required them to learn and manage in a cross-jurisdictional way.”
The CIO office can be highly political. The particular political sensitivities of the CIO role – understanding the institutional tolerance for change, and weighing the potential political benefit against the likely disruption – meant that Korea largely recruited its CIOs from within the civil service.
“In order for IT to make an impact in a bureaucracy, CIOs must have strong bureaucratic domain knowledge, especially in line ministries and agencies,” Lee adds.
Korean CIOs had to have the soft skills to secure high-level political support and to overcome government bureaucracy and silos to build broad-based momentum, ensure compliance and cooperation.
“CIOs may sometimes encounter difficulty preserving their IT knowledge in the public sector,” concludes Lee. “But for them it is more important to strengthen leadership and coordination within the agency. This is key to successful government IT.”
Korean lessons
- CIOs tend to be generalists, IT knowledge is a secondary requirement
- Deputy CIOs have more IT experience, but less management experience
- Difficult to recruit private sector talent to the public CIO role
- CIO needs a flair for getting things done
- Recruit for ‘fit’, other skills can be developed
Quelle: Public Sector Technology & Management, 03.12.2004
