Back in January 2025, the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) published its Blueprint for modern digital government. 

Among its list of six priority reforms, one stood out for me that I think deserves a more detailed look. That’s the requirement that:

“…all public sector organisations [should] have a digital leader on their executive committee and a digital non-executive director on their board by 2026 at the latest.” 

In the footnotes, it adds that this should be:

“A Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Data Officer (CDO) or leader in service transformation, product or customer experience with deep digital expertise.” 

While DSIT plans to consult on which organisations will be in scope, they currently envisage that this would apply to “the majority of public sector organisations”. 

So what might this mean for local government?

Digital Leadership for Local Government

I think our starting position should be that we embrace this change whether it’s made compulsory or not. 

Having a digital leader on management boards has been common practice in the private sector for years. And with good reason. 

Digital – which I mean in its Tom Loosemore sense of “Applying the culture, processes, business models and technologies of the internet-era to respond to people’s raised expectations” – is a means to be a truly high-performing organisation, reduce costs, increase productivity and deliver outstanding services, all of which are priorities shared by councils.

Candidly, in the face of overwhelming financial and service demand pressures, councils  have little choice but to embrace some fundamentally new ways of doing things. And to quote Kit Collingwood, Senior Assistant Director for Digital, Customer Services and Operations at the Royal borough of Greenwich, “Digital is the last strategic lever that local government has yet to fully exploit.”

Why digital leadership is good for councils

If councils were to embrace this new requirement to have expert digital leadership at the highest levels of their governance it could help them:

1. Enhance service delivery and user experience: by championing user-centred service design and driving the adoption of technologies and innovations that make services more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of residents. Most residents want and expect to be able to interact with their council as easily as they can with the other organisations they deal with. 
2. Improve efficiency and value for money: by identifying opportunities to use new technologies like AI, data and modern operating principles to streamline processes, automate tasks, and improve productivity across all service areas. These could be especially targeted at those facing the most extreme pressures, and service backlogs, like Adults, Childrens, SEND and Temporary Accommodation. 
3. Improve cyber security and resilience: Cyber attacks are considered by national government to be a Tier 1 national security threat, alongside terrorism, natural disasters and war. Their impact on a council can be devastating – see the BBC’s recent article about Redcar and Cleveland Council. Too many councils still think about cyber resilience as being an issue for the IT department. It is not. It should be considered in all aspects of a council’s strategic decision making.
4. Strengthen data management and insights: No matter what a borough wants to do, data can help them do it more effectively. A dedicated digital leader can help ensure that councils use their data to inform decision-making, improve service delivery and enhance transparency.
5. Attract and retain talent: Councils will struggle to recruit digitally-native staff if it feels like their work environment leaves modernity at the office door and expects them to use outdated processes and systems. Demonstrating a commitment to digital transformation at the highest levels could help make councils more attractive to the skilled professionals on which the future of our sector depends. 

Clearly, Chief Digital & Information Officers already champion all these things in their organisations. Yet their absence from councils’ top tables risks our sector using digital for individual projects, rather than strategically.

Making the Executive Role a success

While we await guidance from DSIT, there are at least three things councils should be thinking about if the Executive Director role is to be a success:

First, ensuring they appoint someone with the right skills. The digital blueprint is unambiguous that the executive role should be someone with genuine digital expertise. In short, councils should not just add “Digital” to an existing job title unless that person genuinely has the relevant skills. As per the definition of digital used above, that digital lead should not merely be informed about technology, but someone who can advise on technology, data, service design and wider transformation and innovation methods. Such skills are in very high demand, and councils should start by looking at their existing Chief Digital and Information Officers to see if they can be supported into this more senior role.

Second, ensuring the role carries meaningful influence: The executive digital leader should be positioned within a council’s Senior or Corporate Leadership Team (SLT or CMT) alongside other strategic directors and the CEO to ensure their voice is heard and their insights are factored into all strategic decisions. To be meaningful, the role should have oversight of and responsibility for key “digital” functions, such as business intelligence, applications and systems, workplace technology, data and service transformation. Other areas such as Organisational Development (OD), Customer Service and HR could also be considered.

Third, they’ll need to provide support and development: Since most existing Chief Digital / Information Officers have not commonly been on council senior leadership teams in the past, individuals taking on these roles may require leadership training, mentoring, and support to operate effectively at the executive level. Councils should build this training and mentorship into their recruitment and professional development plans. 

Reflections on the Non-Exec role

The language in the digital blueprint about having “a non-executive director” does not easily map onto local government structures as councils don’t have non-executive boards.

While one option is to ensure there’s a Cabinet Member with expertise in and responsibility for digital, the role of an elected member is not typically the same as a non-executive director. 

An additional option would be to use external specialists as a regular professional soundboard, connecting the council to expertise and challenge based on research from across city governments globally. 

In London, this is the sort of function that could be provided by organisations like LOTI. And given central government’s interest in replicating elements of the LOTI model in other parts of the country, this could be a key role of those new entities.

Your views

In the coming weeks, LOTI will be working with its members to finalise a position paper on this requirement, developing guidance for councils and a draft job description for the two new digital leadership roles. 

We’d love to hear from other councils who are thinking about how this requirement might work in local government, and indeed from other sectors that have already experienced the benefits of having a digital exec director. 

If you have ideas to share, please get in touch at contact@loti.london.