A year after she stepped down from the role, NSW transport agency RailCorp is still trying to replace its departed chief information officer Vicki Coleman with a permanent appointee.

Then-NSW Transport Minister David Campbell acknowledged in June last year that Coleman had been stood down from the CIO role following an allegation of “dishonest or corrupt behaviour”. The CIO resigned in October.

Since July Coleman’s IT portfolio has been being managed by Railcorp’s group general manager of finance and corporate services Gary Pedersen in an acting capacity. However, yesterday Railcorp re-advertised the CIO role. A spokesman could not immediately comment on how difficult the agency was finding it to fill Coleman’s shoes.

Coleman herself has since started working as a project manager at a charity in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, according to her LinkedIn profile — assisting with an archiving project.

The position description for RailCorp’s CIO role (PDF) makes clear how serious the responsibilities of the role are. The new CIO will oversee 360 staff in total, as well as a capital budget of over $100 million and an operating budget of $105 million.

Five other senior IT executives within RailCorp report directly to the CIO — general managers of strategy & architecture, project management, ERP delivery, portfolio delivery and operations delivery — as well as several other staff, and the new CIO will report to Pedersen in his finance and corporate services role.

Image credit: Hapsimus, royalty free

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1. Paul..
   Posted 17/06/2010 at 11:20 am | Permalink | Reply

   Hmm .. based on feedback from people I know at the coalface there, that’s an … ‘interesting’ … position to be in! Not an easy one by any means, that’s for sure. Do you know what they’re paying?

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 17/06/2010 at 11:31 am | Permalink | Reply

     Well the position description says it’s at “RL15″ level, whatever that means. I would bet the new CIO will be picking up somewhere between $130k and $180k, myself. But that’s just a ballpark estimate based on what I have seen other top-level govt CIOs get.

     • Paul..
       Posted 17/06/2010 at 12:35 pm | Permalink | Reply

       nowhere near enough to attract the right sort of talent IMHO

       • Renai LeMay
         Posted 17/06/2010 at 12:47 pm | Permalink | Reply

         I completely agree — in the private sector someone who could apply for this level of job could probably easily pick up roles with two to three times the level of pay — and without having to take on the stigma of resolving the RailCorp mess.

         But then, as Department of Defence CIO Greg Farr and others have shown, public service has its own rewards. Can’t say I’m personally keen to get involved in the bureaucracy that is Australian government. But quite a lot of people are!

2. Sean
   Posted 17/06/2010 at 11:35 am | Permalink | Reply

   I am not surprised they are having trouble filling the role given the mess RailCorp is currently in. On one hand you have long serving incumbents who look on with disdain and distrust at any newcomers who might actually be able to improve and overhaul the organisation. The newcomers then have to struggle with RailCorp’s ingrained corporate culture and also be able to manage the union. Not an easy task.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 17/06/2010 at 12:48 pm | Permalink | Reply

     So true. I would give a pretty penny to know what Coleman’s leiutenants think of the job being advertised again.