UK Tech Cluster Group’s Post

Reports that a new Government may abolish the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology & split its responsibilities across Whitehall should concern anyone who cares about growth outside London. As regional tech cluster organisations, we represent many of the towns, cities and communities that Andy Burnham has rightly said need more power, more investment and more economic opportunity. Abolishing DSIT will not help deliver that. In the last few years, DSIT has started to build momentum with regional ecosystems. There has been stronger recognition that tech growth does not only happen in London, Oxford and Cambridge. Programmes around AI, digital adoption, regional ecosystems, skills, procurement, GDS, UKRI and frontier technologies are beginning to connect more closely to the places and businesses that need them. That progress is still early and it needs strengthening, not scattering. The pace of technological change is now so fast that many Combined Authorities and local authorities do not yet have the capacity, technical depth or ecosystem knowledge to deal with this agenda alone. AI, cyber, quantum, digital public infrastructure and emerging technologies are going to reshape entire industries, public services and labour markets. Places need more power, but they also need a strong central department that understands the technology, holds the national strategy, and works with regional partners to make it real on the ground. Breaking DSIT apart would create disruption at exactly the wrong moment. It would absorb time, attention and leadership into machinery of government changes when the focus should be on delivery. It would risk slowing the work already underway on AI adoption, innovation, digital government, regional growth and public sector procurement. If anything, the case is for a stronger technology department, not a weaker one. Science, innovation and technology should remain at Cabinet level, with DSIT strengthened as the strategic home for AI adoption, digital government, public sector innovation, regional tech growth and frontier technology strategy across Whitehall. It should have a clearer mandate to work with DBT, DCMS, DfE, MHCLG, Mayoral Combined Authorities and trusted regional tech cluster organisations, so national policy is properly connected to the places and businesses that will have to deliver it on the ground. That means helping places build capability, not bypassing them. It means connecting national programmes with local ecosystems. It means making procurement work better for startups and scaleups. It means ensuring AI and emerging technologies support British businesses, workers and communities in every part of the country. If the ambition is to give more power to towns, cities and regions, then government needs a strong technology department that can help them use that power well. DSIT should be more regionally connected, more delivery-focused and more central to the UK’s growth mission, not dismantled.