Government admits Burnham’s Whitehall shake-up leaves tech policy in limbo
Nearly two months after Andy Burnham abolished Britain’s technology department, ministers have admitted parts of the former department still have nowhere to go.
A long-awaited breakdown of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) carve-up revealed a “small number of policy areas” are yet to be allocated, while some staff are still waiting to learn where they will work.
The letter, signed by Louise Haigh, Jonathan Reynolds and Lisa Nandy, also reveals just how widely the UK’s tech brief has been scattered across Whitehall.
AI alone will span several departments. Reynolds’ expanded business department will control AI growth, investment and infrastructure, alongside semiconductors, quantum and robotics.
The Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet will meanwhile take the AI Security Institute and responsibility for rolling the technology out across the Civil Service.
An AI Taskforce chaired by Lord Vallance will drive the government’s overall strategy, while the AI Economics Institute will be shared between the prime minister’s office and the Treasury.
AI minister Kanishka Narayan will have one foot in two departments, serving jointly across the Prime Minister’s office and the business department while attending Cabinet.
Lisa Nandy has picked up another sizeable chunk of the old DSIT empire.
Her Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will take cyber security, digital skills, broadband and connectivity, digital government and oversight of the tech sector.
That means a department also responsible for football, gambling, museums and the BBC will now oversee some of Britain’s core digital infrastructure and cyber policy.
Nandy will also inherit responsibility for the Information Commissioner’s Office, Morning Wire was told, as ministers consider an independent review into the data watchdog’s culture, accountability and governance.
Meanwhile, Reynolds will take responsibility for UK Research and Innovation, the Government Office for Science and the Met Office, alongside frontier technologies including quantum and semiconductors.
Some staff still waiting
The government said most former DSIT employees were already working in their new roles, but acknowledged that remaining staff – including some working in corporate functions – will not receive clarity until later this quarter. Formal transfers will take place after that.
The disclosure is notable given warnings when DSIT was abolished in July that months spent rearranging Whitehall could distract officials from Britain’s AI and tech agenda.
Science, Innovation and Technology Committee chair Dame Chi Onwurah demanded the breakdown last month after warning the abolition risked “fragmented policy delivery and vital issues slipping down the agenda”.
Burnham scrapped DSIT less than three-and-a-half years after Rishi Sunak created it specifically to bring science, AI and digital policy together.
TechUK and the Startup Coalition called the decision the “wrong change at the wrong time”, while Founders Forum founder Brent Hoberman told Morning Wire it felt like “fixing something that wasn’t broken”.
Former DSIT permanent secretary Sarah Munby also warned that “confusion and uncertainty are the enemy” and called for immediate clarity over where teams would land.
Ministers have defended doing essentially the reverse of DSIT’s original purpose.
In their letter, Haigh, Reynolds and Nandy said science and technology should not be treated as an “isolated issue, limited to one department”, arguing that spreading responsibility across government would tie it more closely to economic growth.