Prime Minister Andy Burnham has scrapped the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) despite strong warnings from the tech industry against doing so.
Burnham officially became prime minister on Monday and as part of the assembling of his cabinet, following media speculation, scrapped DSIT, the science and tech-focused department established in 2023.
Among the first major acts of restructuring the government under the leadership of Burnham, DSIT’s role managing the UK’s position and relationship with the tech industry will be moved into the Business Department, which will be renamed the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST), led by Jonathan Reynolds.
The idea behind the move is to bring the government’s work with the tech industry more in line with other industries that would typically go through the Business Department.
The decision has proven to be an unpopular one with the tech industry, which has been voicing its concerns over the past few days amid early signs of the decision.
There is significant concern that the restructure will needlessly slow down the progress of a department that was had recently found its feet, managing major areas of government policy, including the AI Opportunities Action Plan, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK Space Agency and more.
There are also concerns that the tech industry, currently one of the most important in the country and the third largest of its kind in the world, will have to compete with other key industry’s for the attention of a single, overly spread department.
