THE PRESIDENT of Socitm has apologised for a confidential report that was leaked by one of its senior members last week.

And the senior member who leaked the report was none other than the president himself.

Richard Steel, the new president, said he had written letters of apology to IT chiefs at Camden, Ealing, Hackney, Havering and Hounslow councils the day before the vote that appointed him as president last Thursday.

Steel, a former merchant banker, leaked the report to the INQUIRER last week to try and prove that the controversial Microsoft deal he struck for Newham in 2004 had been good for the council.

Steel's manifesto included a promise to make Socitm more transparent. He refused to publish a new agreement he struck with Microsoft last year after the first deal came a cropper, failing to achieve its performance targets and halting a major technology refresh. He had refused to publish details of the first deal as well, but it was released under Freedom of Information rules.

Socitm announced Steel's appointment on Friday. He would be trying to boost the orgnisation's influence, it said in a statement. This would mean trying to drum up more members in local government and exerting more influence in central government policy.

The presidential appointment is normally considered a shoe-in, with the longest serving vice president being guaranteed his turn in the big chair. He replaces Rose Crozier, IT chief of Belfast City Council. Jos Creese, head of IT at Hampshire County Council took up the new vice president post, where he joins Chesire CIO Steve Hopson and Steve Palmer, head of IT at Hillingdon. µ