Updated: Gov confirms departure of G-Cloud director

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The Cabinet Office has confirmed that G-Cloud programme director, Chris Chant, is to retire at the end of the month.

Chant has played an active role in both the launch of the G-Cloud Procurement Framework and the rollout of the Government's IT purchasing hub, CloudStore.

In a statement to IT Pro, the Cabinet Office thanked Chant for his years of service, and - in particular - his help with the launch of G-Cloud.

The G-Cloud programme will continue following Chris Chant's departure.

"Chris leaves Government ICT in a strong position and we wish him all the best in the future," said the statement.

"The G-Cloud programme will continue following his departure [and] a decision on the role will be made in the coming weeks."

Contrary to the statement above, Chant's replacement was actually announced earlier this afternoon, with Home Office IT director, Denise McDonagh, set to take over the role from 30 April.

News of his departure comes several days after Chant used the G-Cloud blog to launch a scathing attack on government CIOs.

"CIOs across Government, including me, have been guilty for too long of taking the easy path. We have signed contracts with single suppliers that have led to both poor service and high costs because that is the way Government did things," said Chant.

"[We] allowed our users to suffer with IT that is a decade or more behind what they are using at home because the security considerations for Government are different and stricter from those for everyone else."

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.