Former Socitm president Richard Steel is stepping down from his role as CIO of Newham, leaving behind a legacy of IT leadership in local government.
Steel moved to Newham Council in 1989, where he undertook a number of IT management roles before becoming the chief information officer responsible for information governance and information communications technology.
In 2005, he won the 'Public Sector CIO of the Year' award at the UK Technology, Innovation and Growth awards.
For the past year, Steel also served as president of the public sector IT managers association, Socitm where he managed an ambitious change programme, which saw the body work more closely with central government. With Steel at the helm, Socitm created a Local Government CIO Council, which represents the views of local government to the main Government CIO Council.
After almost 20 years in public sector IT, Steel announced his resignation today in his blog. "I’ve loved my time with Newham, and been very proud of its ICT service. As Socitm’s president I got to see, or hear about, all sorts of Council organisations, but few could match Newham’s ICT accomplishments."
The blog continued: "Even so, it was going to be difficult returning to local government bureaucracy after such a different year, and with such a talented team in Newham demonstrating that they can do very well without me, thanks very much, it somehow seemed unfair, in any case, to return and cramp their style. Many congratulations to Geoff [Connell, acting CIO, Newham Borough] and the team on doing such a great job."
In 2003, Steel ran a competitive tender with Windows against Linux for Newham. Steel made headlines when he took the decision to sign a ground-breaking 10 year licensing agreement with Microsoft.
Also, under Steel's management, Newham reached the government's online service delivery targets of putting services on the internet almost two years ahead of the 2005 schedule.
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Steel has steered the council's ICT strategy to put it on track for the London 2012 Olympics.
Read the full CIO UK interview of Richard Steel's Socitm ambitions here.
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