Can the UK’s Tech reset deliver real business outcomes?
Let’s axe some acronyms, Whitehall red tape and connect Government policy with real Tech business outcomes.
Before our new UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, began commuting to “Number 10” on Monday, Tech bosses, policy leads and government officials were celebrating and catastrophising – in fairly equal measure – over plans to axe the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
DSIT is still a newbie when it comes to departments with seats at the UK government’s top table.
The department was only announced in February 2023. Pledges, plans and outcomes have had mixed reception. Folding DSIT into the newly created Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST), or Department for Business and Trade (DBT), has triggered concerns about policy structure, implementation and delivery.
Plus it’s also an irritating game of “musical chairs” courtesy of department-based acronyms – as well as some new branding. But maybe, it makes some sense.
What was the purpose of creating DSIT?
Originally, DSIT promised to do all sorts to make the UK a “science and technology superpower” by 2030.
Chief among pledges? A “multi-million-pound increase in public investment in R&D capable of turbocharging the five technologies of tomorrow – Quantum, AI, Engineering Biology, Semiconductors and Future Telecoms – together with life sciences, space and green technologies.”
The UK Semiconductor Strategy was delivered over a year later than planned and without specifics, pending feasibility studies.
The UK Quantum Strategy, also delayed, was widely criticised for failing to map how to support moving from research and innovation to commercialisation, backed by sovereign infrastructure, and meet that 2030 goal (which likely seemed far off “enough” in 2023).
The 2024 effective merger of schemes for UK R&D Tax Credits, with guidelines presided over by DSIT, received equally mixed reviews. Ringfencing most, if not all, eligible R&D to take place onshore helped with fraud and was generally good.
Doing away with structure specifically supporting UK SMEs where the scheme could have provided meaningful relief to innovative and scaling tech businesses, well, this turned it into a bureaucratic Rubix Cube.
It’s also worth remembering that the UK has had four Prime Ministers since DSIT came to be; Burnham being our latest. Each of his predecessors has left their own indelible and opposing mark despite, likely, attempting to post-rationalise the department, packed with talented civil servants, but overwhelmed or dysfunctional.
Scrapping DSIT and connecting business outcomes
I love the UK, working with incredible entrepreneurs here, and have had the privilege of collaborating with many governmental departments. There are some, not least DBT and Treasury, the economic and finance ministry, that are established supporters of founders, and connect Tech Transfer Offices, Academia and other vital institutions with scaling our business community.
For me, DSIT never nailed it.
DBT and Treasury send informed and influential individuals to our summits. They respond to emails, listen, and convene meaningful in-person and (even on weekends) meetings with those of us who want the UK to truly support entrepreneurs and founders developing revolutionary technologies that can change the world for the better.
I have checked my inboxes and have not received a single email from a named contact at DSIT, despite repeated attempts to engage.
Over the past decade and more, I have helped found five UK companies and raised approximately €117 million (£100 million), alongside a further €20 million (£23.9 million) in the last three years for founders supported through Venture.Community. I would reasonably expect to be within DSIT’s field of awareness.
My background includes building liquid-cooled GPU clusters for inference as early as 2013, contributing to the EU Exascale programme, and advising novel computing companies in the US, including work connected to NASA.
If someone with this level of experience and network cannot establish contact, it raises a broader question: how is a high-potential emerging startup expected to do so?
You have to wonder why DBT, Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA), DSTL and Treasury “get the memo” and meet with our team, and pre-seed+ community but DSIT seemingly could not reply to an email.
From policy to outcomes
It is early days for Prime Minister Burnham and his very newly assembled cabinet but “newbies” they are not. The appointment of our UK AI Minister, Kanishka Narayan, appears in plenty of headlines, pitted against the decision to scrap DSIT, as if it was a snap move. I am confident that is not the case.
What may not yet be appreciated is the heightened capability, importance and immediacy brought by connecting science, innovation and technology to business outcomes using the true engagement of DBT. Innovation needs commercialisation, or the UK will remain an inventor, without business outcomes from a huge unfair technological advantage.
The UK has strong innovation talent; the next step is turning that into more scalable businesses. The government should align policy with industry, connect innovation to commercial growth, and help the whole country compete globally.
