Rob Greig, the UK Parliament's first ever head of digital, has announced he's leaving in September to join engineering firm Arup as group CIO.
Greig joined Parliament when the Parliamentary Digital Service (PDS) was created in April 2015 and apparently decided to leave the service before the general election in May.
"We would like to thank Rob for all that he has done since his arrival in 2015,"Edward Ollard, clerk of the Parliaments, and David Natzler, the clerk of the House of Commons, said in a joint statement. "The Digital Strategy that he developed and is delivering has begun the transformation of Parliament's digital infrastructure and services.
"He has made dramatic improvements in our cyber security and business systems, and begun the vital work of rebuilding Parliament's website, all during a time of rapid change in PDS. His achievements and his leadership were most visibly displayed just last month during the cyber-attack. We wish Rob every possible success in his new role."
The role of the PDS is to ensure the public, MPs and staff working in Parliament have one unified platform they can communicate through and use together. It's also responsible for the infrastructure for the entire Parliamentary Network, including the provision of IT equipment, services and training for staff to ensure digital services have the support they need to succeed.
However, many of the services covered by the PDS were affected by the WannaCry ransomware attack at the end of June and although Greig had apparently already resigned by this point, he posted a blog on the PDS blog shortly after the incident.
"Over the last two years, our attitude to cyber security has completely changed. It's no longer about what can be stopped. It's about building awareness, detection and response capability," he wrote.
"Once you realise that anything connected to the internet can be hacked, then you have to think differently. Security improvements are an important part of a comprehensive security strategy, but that's only the start."
