His department has confirmed a third wave of recruitment for a scheme under which tech workers are encouraged to join the civil service for secondments lasting between six months to a year.
Under the Innovation Fellowship Programme, set up by the previous Conservative government, recruits are paid a salary up to £85,000 to help find technology-based solutions to problems in delivering public services.
However, he admitted that public service pay constraints would likely prove a “challenge” when it came to enticing new recruits from tech companies.
“Many of the people probably could earn more working in the private sector, so we are appealing to their sense of public service,” he conceded.
The cabinet minister also said he wanted to see increased take-up of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to improve public services – something also promised by the previous government.
Whereas the Conservatives framed technology as a way to cut the size of the civil service, however, McFadden said he did not have a “target for headcount” and his “focus” was on making officials more productive.
