Steve Palmer is Head of ICT at Hillingdon Council in London and his brief includes ICT, customer contact, e-delivery and a leading role in the Council's improvement work in Customer Focus. The Hillingdon Improvement Programme aims to move the organisation from modernisation to transformation. Steve won the "Public Sector CIO of the Year" award at the 2006 UK Technology, Innovation & Growth awards and was named as one of the top 50 most influential CIO's in the Country in 2007. He also plays a leading role in International, National, Regional and sub regional working and is both a past Chairman of Socitm London Branch and a founding member and co sponsor of the European Local Government E-Leaders Forum.

The broad issues of citizen access to, and use of, services are key drivers for his work and his brief includes management of the Council's multi channel Customer Contact Centre, as well as the Council's ICT services and infrastructure. As a geographic area Hillingdon is currently enjoying unprecedented commercial investment but it also suffers from significant deprivation within certain parts of the Borough. Hillingdon is multi-cultural and reflects the residency of Heathrow within its Boundaries. Prior to his move into a Corporate level role Steve had a 20 year background at senior level in direct service management in local government. His work included both delivering and supporting front line services including refuse collection, street cleaning, vehicle maintenance and general engineering.

He lives in Essex, is married with 2 grown up children, and has 3 grandchildren. He has the rare distinction of being one of the select few Leyton Orient Football Club supporters and enjoys travel and reading in his spare time.