Chief Platform Owner, Chief Digital Information Office

The Chief Platform Owner (CPO) will be critical in partnering with the business to meet HMRC's dynamic policy needs. The CPO will build platform management capabilities to enable fast response times and scalability, as our technology footprint increases.

The CPO will own the strategy and direction for all technology platforms. This is a key leadership role as we position HMRC as a trusted and modern tax authority, with world-class customer experiences.

To deliver this important agenda, the CPO will:

• Develop long-term strategies and objectives for all platforms, aligned with CDIO and HMRC's vision, directing their usage, and sponsoring all CPO practices.
• Oversee the performance of platforms, ensuring quality and efficiency of delivery. Managing the guardrails and governance surrounding the use of platforms for teams, suppliers, product teams, and citizen developers.
• Lead continuous service improvement, to ensure platforms continue to meet business requirements. The CPO will encourage continuous innovation, and agile ways of working, to fail fast and deliver quickly .
• Coordinate and manage relationships with platform suppliers and manage the engagement strategy. They will utilise performing reporting to ensure suppliers align with strategic vision.
• Lead the delivery of change across all platform services, developing, agreeing and implementing a platforms roadmap, and prioritising demands from several Platform Owners whilst ensuring teams are adhering to relevant metrics.
• Represent platforms and service management & integration at a senior level, acting as an escalation point for platforms, services, and supplier related issues.
• Set the overarching strategy for platform quality and safety standards (including digital certificates and software licenses) and ensure Platform Owners are meeting and exceeding standards.
• Ensure operations have high levels of integrity, and pose minimal risk to the organisation, across platforms and services.
• Own the test strategy, approach, standards, and methods that will be used by the product and platform delivery teams.
• Provide insight as a recognised platform expert at SLT level, keeping abreast of industry best practice, and championing Agile and Lean ways of working.
• Identify underlying technology requirements to support platform capability and lead a team of specialists in the creation of services.
• Provide excellent leadership to a team of c200. Coach and develop platform management and service management & integration teams, to support excellent delivery.

Key Interactions

The role is responsible for platforms that drive products and services across all HMRC, so interactions will be far-reaching and at the most senior levels. The CPO will be expected to:

• Influence prioritisation across platforms and suppliers, including new business demand, continuous improvement and exception activity.
• Have overall accountability for managing relationships with all Platform Owners, as the SLT sponsor for all CPO practices.
• Be a member of the CDIO SLT, ensuring platform and service management & integration strategies are aligned to wider strategy.
• Resolve escalations and seek to continuously improve platform strategies and CPO practice dimensions.
• Work closely with the Chief Product Owner to ensure the correct products are being built on the correct platforms, and with the Chief Technology & Design Office to develop the overarching platform strategy.
• Work closely with the wider business to provide expertise on how specific platform technologies should be used.
• Work closely with the Service Management Integration Director to collaborate and align on key activities.

Key Performance Indicators

• Achievement of target state maturity and capabilities ( by 2025)
• Achieve outcomes in line with SLA, budget and quality standards
• Further develop efficiency of release processes
• Reduce/Lower technical debt
• Minimise the number of Incidents
• Ensure swift Incident resolution
• Maximisation of Platform Availability and Uptime

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