The Northern Ireland Civil Service is hiring a newly created ‘Chief Digital Officer’ on a salary of up to £124,000 a year after it was recommended by a consultancy firm paid £300,000 by The Executive Office.
Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly’s department spent £300,000 last year on a ‘digital maturity assessment’ carried out by a London-based consultancy firm to analyse digital systems within the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
Among the outcomes from the spend was the appointment of the new ‘Chief Digital Officer’ role to the Civil Service to oversee recommendations from the report.
The contract for the assessment was given to Public Digital in March 2025, a company based in Holborn in London.
The company describes itself as a “transformation consultancy that works with leading commercial organisations, governments and global institutions, helping them to change their ways of working to become more responsive, adaptable and impactful”.
The sum paid to Public Digital is the highest single expenditure noted by the Executive Office on consultants in the last ten years.
A response to an Assembly Question from SDLP MLA Colin McGrath shows more than £1.2million has been spent on consultants by TEO for strategies and projects in the last decade. The digital maturity assessment was the only six-figure sum recorded during that time.
The new Chief Digital Officer role has been advertised by the Civil Service, including responsibilities to establish a new digital department and to “provide expert advice” to Jayne Brady, head of the NICS and other senior civil servants.
Earlier this year, a scathing report by a Stormont committee found that more than £5billion of public money was at risk due to “persistent failures” across multiple major IT projects in the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
The Public Accounts Committee report, published on last week, found that delays and an inability to deliver IT projects in the public sector “exposes public services and the public purse to unnecessary risk and significant costs”.
The Major IT Projects in Northern Ireland report cited “long-standing failures in strategic planning, continued reliance on outdated legacy systems and a lack of collective leadership and accountability across Executive departments”.
A spokesperson for NICS said the £300,000 spend came from the Public Sector Transformation Fund, provided to Stormont as part of a deal to restore power sharing in 2024.
“Public Digital was funded by the Public Sector Transformation Fund to undertake an assessment of the NI Civil Service’s digital capabilities and develop recommendations and a roadmap for future transformation.
“The assessment has concluded, and its findings are shaping the direction of digital transformation across the NICS, with a new Chief Digital Officer role being created to lead this work and tackle issues identified during the assessment.
“All expenditure is in line with the principles set out in Managing Public Money NI, ensuring that public funds are used appropriately.”
