Natalie Ceeney, the high-flier brought in to modernise HM Courts and Tribunals Service, has announced her departure after just 16 months in post.

In a statement this morning Ceeney said: 'There is a strong team in place to lead the work, and it now feels like an appropriate time to hand the baton on to a successor to see through the transformation over the next four to five years.’

Ceeney, a former management consultant and head of National Archives, was hired by HMCTS in January 2015 to take charge of a £700m programme to bring courts into the digital age. She told MPs this spring that the programme was on track for completion by 2020. 

She has been a strong advocate for ‘virtual’ courts, telling a conference last year that: ‘For many of our services, that physical paradigm no longer feels like the right answer, not just because it’s expensive, but because it is no longer the right answer for good justice.’ 

Ceeney was appointed in November 2014 as a new broom from HSBC where she had been head of customer standards. She took up her post in January 2015. She began her career in the NHS before moving to management consultancy McKinsey and then to the British Library and the National Archives.