Digital Public-Service Platform Recovery Executive — Civic Services

The mandate

The platform executive went on extended medical leave after a grant-release weekend overwhelmed identity checks, payment status and case-enquiry services simultaneously. Infrastructure recovered, yet citizens encountered inconsistent states for several days and contact centres lacked authoritative answers. Product departments and suppliers now disagree whether the failure belonged to shared platforms, journey design or release coordination, leaving no executive able to sign the next peak-readiness position.

The interim is needed in Cape Town within three weeks for nine months, initially assuming the absent executive’s decision rights while the board determines whether and when a return is possible. The first two months stabilise releases and citizen-state reconciliation; platform and supplier redesign follows. A permanent or returning leader receives six weeks of structured overlap, with any extension limited to continuity of that handover.

Handover succeeds when identity, notification, payment-status and case interfaces meet journey-level objectives through two simulated peaks and one live payment cycle; citizen state can be reconciled from source within thirty minutes; and critical services have tested manual continuity. The successor must command an unannounced exercise and accept supplier obligations, capacity thresholds, architectural exceptions and unresolved service-equity risks.

The interim may stop releases, impose shared-service contracts, redeploy the approved R420 million programme, appoint fixed-term incident leads and enforce supplier remediation within signed agreements. Changes to statutory eligibility, citizen data policy, permanent hiring, contract termination and spending above the envelope require chief executive or committee approval. The seat cannot determine individual benefit entitlement or direct public communications without authorised officials.

Policy redesign, replacement of departmental case systems and physical service-centre modernisation remain outside this assignment. The executive may insist on reliable interfaces and continuity evidence, but does not own grant calculations, departmental operating structures or historic record repair beyond cases affected by platform inconsistency. Recovery must not become a pretext for centralising every public-service product.

Why this seat is open

Medical absence coincided with a severe cross-service failure, exposing a shared-platform function whose authority depended heavily on one individual. Department leaders can repair local components but cannot arbitrate end-to-end citizen outcomes or supplier priorities. A temporary executive is required to establish durable platform accountability while the board resolves the long-term leadership path respectfully and without delay.

What you will own

• Reconstruct the grant-weekend failure across identity, eligibility reference, payment status, notification, case routing, contact-centre view and citizen consequence.
• Define journey-level service objectives that reveal inconsistent citizen states even when individual components remain technically available.
• Decide platform interface, release and continuity obligations for product departments and suppliers, including evidence required before peak change freezes lift.
• Direct peak exercises covering identity slowdown, delayed payment files, notification backlog, partial network access and supplier-support degradation.
• Establish a citizen-state reconciliation capability with authoritative sources, exception ownership, ageing thresholds and auditable correction decisions.
• Reprioritise the sanctioned recovery portfolio toward observable service restoration, manual continuity and removal of high-consequence single points of failure.
• Transfer executive control through an unannounced exercise, live payment-cycle review and signed successor acceptance of service and supplier debt.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive platform or digital-service responsibility for government, payments, healthcare, utilities or another high-volume essential-service environment.
• Led recovery where several healthy technical components produced an inconsistent or inaccessible end-to-end customer or citizen outcome.
• Defined platform contracts across independently accountable product departments without using centralisation as the default answer to every failure.
• Managed major systems integrators and service providers through evidence-based remediation under public accountability and fixed contractual constraints.
• Designed continuity for users facing low bandwidth, assisted channels or limited digital access rather than measuring resilience only for ideal online journeys.
• Handed a sensitive executive seat to a returning or newly appointed leader while preserving dignity, operational clarity and unresolved-risk transparency.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Cape Town within three weeks for exclusive service, including command availability during payment peaks and public-service incidents.
• Has carried accountable authority for an essential digital service whose failure had direct financial or welfare consequences for users.
• No undisclosed supplier, political, procurement or investment relationship may intersect with providers or departments in the recovery perimeter.
• Will protect citizen information and communicate service limitations honestly even when platform availability statistics appear favourable.

1. 49 words maximum. State your earliest Cape Town start and one essential-service failure for which you held end-to-end authority.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you reconcile inconsistent customer or citizen states when every component owner reported acceptable availability?
3. 49 words maximum. What would you test in a peak exercise to include assisted and low-connectivity service journeys?