It must have been rather like having Christmas and his birthday on the same day. To attract thrusting, dynamic candidates from industry to fill the chief executive’s post at its national ICT agency, Becta, the Department for Education (DfES) and Skills upped the salary to around pound;150,000.
Inside gossip has it that few industry candidates were in the running, which left the post clear for a career civil servant from the DfES to enjoy, we presume, a healthy pay rise. So good luck to the new incumbent, Stephen Crowne, who will certainly be earning his salary sorting out the after-effects of the Becta restructuring exercise thoughtfully enacted in the weeks before he took up his position (news, page 4).
