MoD IT consultant paid £2,000 a day to cover civil servant’s job

Off By Sharon Black

Yvonne Ferguson brought in as chief information officer during cost-cutting period where 50,000 jobs have been axed

The Ministry of Defence is paying an IT consultant £2,000 a day to cover the job of a civil servant at a time of cost-cutting that has already led to 50,000 civilian and military jobs being axed, the Guardian can reveal.

The appointment of Yvonne Ferguson at the MoD is thought to have made her one of the most highly paid staff in Whitehall – with a pro rata salary of more than £500,000 pa.

Ferguson has been drafted in to help streamline the department’s myriad IT systems, but the appointment has caused concern among some senior colleagues, who have seen staff axed because of deep cuts to the defence budget.

The MoD says it has had to pay Ferguson the market rate for her services – she was recruited from Capita, the government’s support services provider.

It is understood Ferguson is on a short-term contract and a member of the civil service will eventually take over the post, at a much reduced salary. But it is not clear how long she will be in the role, and the tasks she has to undertake are huge, long-term projects.

For the foreseeable future the MoD will pay £10k a week for her to take over as the MoD’s chief information officer – she had similar jobs at Transport for London and at Royal Mail in 2010.

An MoD spokesman said: “A new chief information officer is being appointed to transform and modernise our information systems in both the military and business environments. The MoD has for many years been criticised for its inability to track information, run a proper inventory management system and integrate its information systems.

“The new CIO is not directly employed by the MoD, but her services are contracted in through an agency, at the market rate, for skills required to deliver IT solutions in a highly complex operating environment.”

Announcing her appointment before Christmas, the MoD said she would become the department’s new three star CIO – the civilian equivalent of a Royal Navy vice admiral, a lieutenant general in the army or an RAF air marshall. Those roles usually come with a salary of about £150,000 pa.

Ferguson’s salary is understood to reflect the complexities of the job, which includes moving the MoD to a new computer system and developing a new IT strategy for the military.

The MoD said of her: “Yvonne has a proven track record of delivering large and complex transformational programmes and of strong leadership, having been CIO at Royal Mail and Transport for London.

“Yvonne has the energy and drive necessary to move the MoD towards its vision for information systems that are agile, secure and robust, and meet our operational and corporate needs.”

But other defence and treasury officials have been taken aback by the size of the salary, which is high for a department that already has some of the best paid mandarins in Whitehall. Some technical and engineering contractors are known to command a …read more