Jos Creese, Head of IT at Hampshire County Council takes on Socitm Presidency

Jos Creese, Head of IT at Hampshire County Council has been confirmed as the new Socitm President. He took up his post immediately following the AGM on April 22.

His Socitm involvements prior to becoming President include chairing Socitm Insight, and immediately before becoming President he was one of the Society's three vice Presidents. He will hold office for one year with immediate effect.

In his 'day job' at Hampshire CC, Jos runs the IT group of technology and business professionals, and supports a variety of business change programmes enabled by IT for the Council.  Hampshire CC also provides IT services to several hundred other public sector organisations.

At a national level, Jos is a member of the CIO Council, and the Local Data Panel, and is chairs the Local Public Service CIO Council.
He has over 20 years' experience in IT management, and joined Hampshire CC in 2002, following an earlier career in IT at district, unitary and county level, having started out in IT in the Department of Health.

A regular speaker at conferences, Jos is well known as an advocate for a changed approach to IT leadership that reflects the changing role of IT demanded by private and public sectors alike, and this will be a key theme of his Presidency. Speaking to members at Socitm's National Conference in Birmingham after his election, he referred to the increased demands that will be placed on public sector IT, and therefore on public sector IT professionals, after the general election.

Working alongside service managers, he said, IT professionals must carve out a role as 'agents of change', helping to re-shape the face of public services. This means involvement in policy formulation and service redesign, not technology. It also means taking risks and being at the forefront of change, rather than keeping busy in the Data Centre.

Under his leadership Socitm will reflect these challenges in developing support for members beyond the high quality consultancy, training and published research it already provides. Socitm will need to think and act in ways which reflect today's demands on IT, he said - by being leaner, meaner, and acting at lightening speed.

He pointed to three areas of key importance for Socitm:

• Professionalism: broadening the membership beyond the traditional heads of IT and local government sector.
• Affiliations: furthering closer links already developing with the BCS, LGA, IDeA, CIPFA, Central Government, NHS and the private sector.
• Widening membership involvement in the work of the Society

'We know that technology holds the key to modernisation and dealing with the financial pressures facing public services' he said. 'It is central to nearly all transformation, process improvement and workforce efficiency. But get any of this wrong and IT professionals will be quickly blamed for failing to deliver - CIOs and their teams will, in the next 2 years, become saviours or scapegoats. This is where Socitm must help our members by providing the right armoury of services and support'.

Socitm also elected three new Vice Presidents at the AGM: Kay Brown, Head of ICT at South Lanarkshire Council; Glyn Evans, Corporate Director of Business Change, Birmingham City Council; and  Steve Halliday, Head of ICT at Solihull MBC.

 

Further information:

A print quality image of Jos is available at: http://www.socitm.net/images/Jos_Creese.jpg

Jos Creese
Tel: 01962 847436
Socitm President
Email: jos.creese@hants.gov.uk

Vicky Sargent
Tel: 07726 601 139
Socitm Press Office
vicky.sargent@socitm.gov.uk