HM Revenue and Customs has appointed former Barclays senior executive Mark Denney as interim chief digital and information officer.
Denney, who has been working as a contractor since leaving the bank in 2018, takes over from Jacky Wright, who left the tax agency on 11 October. She returned to work in the US for Microsoft, after completing a two-year “loan” from the software vendor.
Denney’s recruitment will “provide continuity”, HMRC said, until the search for a permanent CDIO commences shortly.
The new CDIO joins the department as it nears the mid-point of a decade-long transformation plan. The revamp set out a range of ambitions for the 10-year period from 2015 to 2025. Rolling out digital services and new technology for staff forms a strand of the transformation mission – as does bringing many IT services back in house that were previously provided by Capgemini, Fujitsu, and Accenture as part of the £10bn, 13-year Aspire contract.
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Denney will assume overall responsibility for all the department’s digital services, including the ongoing rollout of the Making Tax Digital programme. Also part of his remit is HMRC’s hardware and software infrastructure.
Jim Harra – who was recently appointed as HMRC chief executive and first permanent secretary – said: “I’m delighted to welcome Mark to HMRC as our new chief digital and information officer. He was an exceptional candidate and his appointment enables us to continue our transformation to a digitally-enabled, world-class organisation. His experience in technological change and payments infrastructure is particularly relevant for us as we expand our online services to business and personal customers and implement the digital strategy we’ve developed over the past two years.”
Denney spent more than 10 years at Barclays and, earlier in his career, also held senior posts at various other major financial services firms, including JP Morgan Chase and GE Capital. He will start work at HMRC on 11 October.
Denney said: “I’m really looking forward to joining HMRC at such an exciting time and to having the opportunity to build on the achievements of Jacky Wright.”