The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is being merged with the Department for Business and Trade just three and a half years after both organisations were created under the Sunak administration.
Full details of new prime minister Andy Burnham’s plans for the departments are yet to emerge. However, the fundamentals of the machinery of government change – which also includes the return of “digital” to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – were laid out last night in Burnham’s cabinet appointments.
Former business secretary Jonathan Reynolds returns to lead an expanded version of the business department, which will be known as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology.
A message on DSIT’s website confirms “this organisation is changing”. The department referred Civil Service World’s queries about its future to No.10.
When Labour returned to government in 2024, one of its first acts was to announce the transfer of digital functions – including the Government Digital Service and the then Central Digital and Data Office – from the Cabinet Office to DSIT. Also included in the move was the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence.
No.10 has so-far not specified where those services, which are now collectively branded as GDS, will sit under the new arrangements. CSW has sought clarification, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy was reappointed in yesterday’s reshuffle and is now the only secretary of state to have retained their original brief since Labour returned to power just over two years ago.
No.10’s announcement also confirmed the rebranding of DCMS as the “Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport” – the name it was known by between July 2017 and February 2023.
While Burnham has not set out how DSIT’s former remit will be split between DBIST, DCMS and the Cabinet Office, a potential clue for artificial intelligence may come in the form of the appointment of Kanishka Narayan as minister of state responsible for AI. According to No.10, Narayan’s role will straddle the Cabinet Office and DBIST. He will also attend cabinet.
In terms of departmental leadership, DBIST is currently without a permanent secretary, following the departure of Gareth Davies to take the helm at the Home Office earlier this year. Amanda Brooks is serving as interim perm sec.
Emran Mian is the current perm sec at DSIT and may be the obvious choice to lead DBIST.
‘Technology and innovation are not separate sectors of our economy’
In a written ministerial statement this afternoon, lord privy seal Angela Smith said DSIT’s functions will be redistributed to align with the government’s “core economic and social agenda, embedded as vital engines of growth exactly where they can have the most direct impact”.
“This move recognises that technology and innovation are not separate sectors of our economy – they are the foundation of all future industry, culture, and public service delivery,” Baroness Smith said.
She added that a new AI Taskforce will be established within the new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, which will be led by cabinet secretary Dame Antonia Romeo.
“Supported by a prime ministerial adviser on AI, this central team will drive the government’s overall strategy on AI to unlock the opportunities it holds for growth, prosperity and public sector transformation,” she said. “The Cabinet Office will also take the lead on AI adoption across the civil service, reflecting the urgency of delivering that transformation for the benefit of people across the country. To deliver this step change, responsibility for AI strategy, public sector AI adoption and the AI Security Institute will move to the Cabinet Office”
Smith said the strengthened DCMS will gain responsibility for digital foundations, digital transformation, digital inclusion and skills, information resilience and online harms. “This provides critical scale and recognises that culture and technology are inseparable drivers of our modern economy, while bringing coherence to the online safety agenda,” she said. “It also emphasises our commitment that bringing together levers to support youth policy online and in real life will build a stronger package of support for young people.”
Smith said DBIST will take on responsibility for emerging sectors in addition to its new innovation and science briefs. She said the changes signify “our global leadership in science and innovation and the continuing role they play in the UK economy” and “will align our science and research base directly with commercial application and job creation”.
Reynolds says changes are not radical
Earlier today, returning business secretary Reynolds told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that DBIST would not represent a radical departure from previous models.
“There have been different configurations of the business department,” he said. “I myself have shadowed something which is quite similar to what we decided to do yesterday.”
Reynolds was shadow business secretary from November 2021 to May 2026, bridging the final 14 months of the old Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the formation of DBT.
Reynolds insisted that science would “in no way” be a secondary issue in DBIST.
“It will be at the forefront of the business department, working alongside our trade policy consistently with our industrial strategy, our plan for small business, what we’re doing in terms of market-access arrangements with other countries, [and] professional qualifications being recognised,” he said. “Bringing those things together in a more powerful department is, in government terms, a big win for science.”
Reynolds said British science and innovation “is an absolute national asset” and something the nation should be proud of. “The historic challenge has always been how we commercialise that; how we get the benefits of that for our economy,” he said.
Royal Society president Sir Paul Nurse said in a statement that it would be “essential” for science not to be a junior partner in the new department.
“We need to see the prime minister and the new secretary of state put their active support behind the full science system,” he said. “That is how we make science deliver across all parts of government and the best way to make science work for everyone.”
This story was updated at 15:00 on 21 July 2026 to include extra detail from the government