Introduction

Stephen Crunkhorn is a newly appointed member of the Information Standards Board. As Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Qualifications Curriculum Authority (QCA) he discharges the role of Director of Strategic Systems Group (SSG) and Information Technology Services (ITS). He has been in post since September 2007.

Previous work / experiences

Stephen joined the QCA after a significant career at the Home Office starting in 1987. As an official, he has had experience at CIO, CTO and IT Director level. As a Project and Programme Management (PPM) professional he has extensive delivery experience and has championed project management as a head of profession. He has considerable experience of shared service creation and the use of Enterprise Project Management Techniques. He has also discharged roles outside of the Home Office, including the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman) as an investigator and a posting with the British Defence Staff in Washington DC.

Within the QCA, he is currently championing the creation of the QCA IS and IT strategies while assisting colleagues from the newly formed Ofqual, in the creation of an IT strategy for their organisation. Embedding the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is central to his personal approach and he strongly believes in delivery through people. As Project Director (Project Executive) for Minerva, he is leading the delivery of the Diploma Aggregation Service as a building block of the 14 -19 Education Sector Reform and is providing leadership to the IT elements and programme level assurance to the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF). He is operationally responsible for the systems support to Web Based Accreditation (WBA), the National Database of Accredited Qualifications (NDAQ) and embedding an IT outsourcing contract for desktop services with Steria.