Whitehall: we have £2m of salary banked for top talent

The government Department charged with running the civil service is actively hiring developers to transform the public sector, reports an IT news site, quoting a blog on the Government Digital Service.

Whitehall's digital tsar, Mike Bracken, says in his post that the civil service is "badly in need of the talent to engineer ourselves out of our torpor".

The Cabinet Office is advertising for 12 developers, three interaction designers, five product managers and eight other roles - with salaries ranging from £59,000 to £117,000, adding up to more than £2m if everyone is paid the highest quoted remuneration.

Bracken said he wants the new hires to push through the "digital transformation" to public services he has been framing since his May appointment as executive director of digital in the Cabinet Office's ERG (Efficiency and Reform Group) .

The blog post also takes a swipe at previous government IT projects as risk averse and unwieldy, signalling his desire to use open source technology, cloud based infrastructure and user input to achieve a new, Agile approach.

The news comes the same week as official Cabinet Office plans to boost Whitehall tech skills have been announced.