Andy Nelson becomes UK government CIO

Andy Nelson was announced as the government's new chief information officer on Monday.

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Nelson will hold the post alongside his existing position as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) CIO and will take over from Joe Harley, who will be retiring from the civil service at the end of March.

Nelson has been heavily involved in the government's cloud computing plans over the last year. A spokesman for the Cabinet Office told Guardian Government Computing that this will continue as G-Cloud remains part of the government's ongoing IT strategy, announced last year.

Commenting on the appointment, Ian Watmore, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, said: "It is fantastic to be able to assign the role of government CIO to someone who has held major CIO roles in private sector and has been involved in the ICT strategy since the very beginning. Andy has worked closely with Joe over the past months and will continue to do so — ensuring that we continue to deliver ICT services fit for a modern civil service."

Nelson has been at the MoJ since September 2009 when he joined from the private sector.

The CIO has nearly 30 years of experience in IT, and has previously worked as group director for strategic change and IS at Royal Sun Alliance, and director of computer services at Asda.

This story originally appeared on Guardian Government Computing.