Another senior Gov.UK bod makes a dash from public sector, falls into AWS's arms

Amazon Web Services has once more dipped into its public sector employee tech training academy – also known as Her Majesty's government – and made off with another senior head to bulk out its division. Holly Ellis has crossed the divide into the private sector, and joined AWS as senior manager for solution architects for the …

[tiggity]

Revolving door has long been a thing

Lip service is paid to the whole process.

If anything even more overt in armed forces than the civil service.

Private Eye is a good source for this sort of thing - read some back issues its not a new thing, but does seem to be even less well policed than it was (the flimsy pretence not even that now)

[phuzz]

Re: Revolving door has long been a thing

Private Eye do good work, but it's good to see elReg covering the same ground as well (from a tech angle).

[Dan 55]

Nobody can claim the government is not interested in the environment

There's a stampede to the Amazon to see for themselves.

[Teiwaz]

Why?

Recruit from Gov. pool when project mismanagement and Ministers seemingly badly advised.

Must be for the old boy networking for more moneywork.

Can't be quality of actual work.

[steviebuk]

Re: Why?

It will also be their "links" to old "friends" who still work for public sector and can make a "tender" process work in their favour. That's what I think, not saying its fact though but a possibility.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why?

I'm pretty sure that the links to old pals AND insider knowledge of the process to bid for uber-mega contracts is the primary, if not the only reason by any large biz to employ ex-gov. Move along, nothing (new) to see here, move along, I SAID!

[Chris Hills]

ACOBA is a waste of space

See almost every edition of Private Eye.

[Andy The Hat]

"...and turned over $850m in total last year"

Blimey, that must be about 15p in tax then ...

Hang on, forgot the tax incentives - the Government probably owes them £50m :-)

[codejunky]

Hmm

Thinking about it I see 2 obvious possibilities-

1. At least our public sector has some people worth hiring

or

2. If we worry about public sector workers jumping to private sector work due to some 'wonky advantage' maybe the public sector should not be involved in whatever that work is

I dont know which it is or if either is right but a positive and negative view of the situation all the same.

[IT Hack]

Maxwell

Ahh Good old Liam...on the gravy train.

Amusing that the reason he joined the Cabinet Office was through his highly qualified tech career as an on line estate agent.

[SVV]

Once gov bods see ther's a nice job waiting at AWS, gov contracts start going to AWS

Not kruption at all, no sir we don't do that here........ pure coinkydink.......

I presume Amazon are just giving them the jobs and money so that they can tempt government officials and ministers into awarding ever more contracts to them, knowing full well that such rewarding of contracts guarantees future employment at Amazon. Because if they're actually recruiting them because of their expertise and track record of successful IT projects, then Amazon is going to go belly up quite rapidly, as their record of inadequately specced projects that grow in scope and cost until the billions that have been wasted have to written off when the project is scrapped will be pretty devastating for Amazon's profitability.

[macjules]

Not at all involved

In her new role Holly will not be involved in any activity that would breach her obligations under the Civil Service's Business Appointment Rules.

Of course she won't. And those ACoBA members obviously do not include political party nominees and independent members appointed by the Prime Minister, do they? Jenny Arcuri says they don't and she would know ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is anyone surprised?

Civil service payscales mean that those working for larger departments, or in certain specialised areas, develop skills/gain experience that gets much higher wages outside the civil service.

This is because the private sector have the freedom to compete on wages.

Civil service pensions are also no longer great so little to keep capable staff there.

[Anonymous Coward]

manage teams of architects supporting healthcare, education

so, they're gonna build new hospitals and schools, eh? Virtually speaking.

[Gordan]

Non-compete / non-poaching / conflict of interest clauses?

Why don't public sector employment contracts have them? Most private sector employment contracts state that for the period of 6-24 months after leaving the job you must not go work for a supplier / customer / anyone introduced to you as part of your job after leaving the job.

[Anonymous Coward]

making the right connections

strategic moves so It will become easier to push their garbage services within governments in the coming years.

This will be the epitome of vendor lock/milking and data exploitation.

[Anonymous Coward]

She was poached from the private sector to start with

She used to work for TSO, now part of Williams Lea.

That’s where the real talent pool is.