What does your job entail?
We retain the overall strategic ownership of the IT service on behalf of the council. Previously, our staff was 71 IT workers and 12 print staff, but we did a large-scale public-private partnership (PPP) – or outsourcing project in most people’s un-varnished terms. We manage the IT part of the PPP contract.

What was your first job?
My career history is somewhat chequered. My first job was as a trainee accountant for Pickfords heavy haulage and I’ll quickly acknowledge that I never qualified as an accountant.

How did you get into IT?
After about 18 months as said trainee accountant I went to the London Borough of Enfield to work in the internal audit section and got chucked in at the deep end because the head wanted somebody who had a bit of IT knowledge. They knew I’d done some Fortran programming as part of my degree and I ended up writing a program that interrogated the property rating system that showed which properties were incorrectly rated.

What do you think is the most overhyped technology?
Well, I don’t know whether I should say this; the last thing I want to do is cause problems for myself with these answers. I’m tempted to say SAP – we use SAP. I think SAP is being delivered in many local authorities now and I don’t think it’s written for the public sector. It needs some work doing on it vis-à-vis the public sector.

What keeps you awake at night?
Budgets and finances, as well as making the books balance and managing new risk.

What’s the worst computer you’ve ever used?
The early PCs, they were a bit rough and raw.

Which recent IT news item would have the biggest impact on your organisation?
Green IT; it’s the latest whizz-bang situation. It is having an impact on us because, like everybody else, we can’t duck it. I haven’t got my head in the sand, we’re tackling it where we can. We’re using virtualisation and other techniques to reduce power consumption, and we’re introducing home working facilities. Wake-on-LAN technologies and thin clients will also have an effect on our work.