The chair of the parliamentary committee overseeing the work of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has warned that the decision to close down the department risks “overloading” others across government that may require higher levels of digital support.
Shortly after formally taking over as prime minister, Andy Burnham confirmed rumours that DSIT would be broken up. Its constituent parts and policy areas are being distributed between an expanded Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the Cabinet Office, and a new-look Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – which, to many onlookers’ surprise, will be the new home of the Government Digital Service.
Dame Chi Onwurah – a former technology professional and shadow digital minister who now chairs the current DSIT committee – has joined a growing band of voices that have raised concerns about the planned digital government shake-up.
“The government’s ambition to embed science, innovation and technology as ‘engines of growth’ across the economy is a good one,” she said. “However, scrapping the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and splitting its functions across three other departments, risks fragmenting these vital policy areas, and overloading departments that may lack capacity to give them the attention they need.”
Onwurah added: “It will also take time and resources away from important policy work in fast-moving fields. My committee has heard the concerns expressed by many in the sector about this move, and in the autumn I expect that we will look into the impact of closing DSIT, and how science, innovation and technology can best be coordinated across government, in the absence of a dedicated department.”
In a statement posted on the committee’s website, the chair also cited a recent report in which she and her colleagues found that, after GDS was moved two years ago from its long-time home in the Cabinet Office to a new ‘digital centre’ in DSIT, “the operational delays caused by the July 2024 machinery of government change, combined with shifting priorities, has hamstrung delivery of the vision set out in” government’s digital blueprint published in early 2025.
“As digital is now essential to the operation of every government department and public body, we believe that the Cabinet Office should have housed the digital centre, not DSIT,” the report said.
“However, at this stage in the parliament, it would be unrealistic to recommend a reversal of the change. Instead, the government must follow the logic of the ‘digital centre of government’ label and empower GDS to deliver, with clear political and technical leadership.”