Senior figures from across the UK tech industry have warned that reported plans by incoming prime minister Andy Burnham to break up the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) risk derailing the country’s tech agenda at a critical moment.
The concerns follow reports that Burnham — who is set to be appointed PM on Monday — is considering folding parts of the three-year-old department into a strengthened business department, while transferring other responsibilities elsewhere across Whitehall.
According to the Financial Times, Jonathan Reynolds is expected to return as business secretary, with science policy potentially moving under his remit as part of a wider departmental overhaul.
The prospect of dismantling DSIT prompted a swift backlash from startup founders, investors and tech policy leaders, with several arguing that another Whitehall reorganisation would consume time better spent delivering on the UK's AI and digital ambitions.
"After [three] years DSIT is now established — changes would undermine all that work," wrote Vinous Ali, deputy executive director at Startup Coalition, on X. "They're just moving out of strategy and into implementation in areas like compute and online safety — reorg would be a BIG distraction."
Ian Hogarth, partner at Plural and chair of the UK's AI Security Institute, likewise argued that a full departmental restructure would come at a significant cost.
"Reorgs like this basically distract departments for a year," he wrote. "If you're serious about growth as your top priority it's not something you do. The best civil servants I've worked with are there to have impact. If you chew their days up with these kind of random re-orgs, the best people move on."
Former government AI adviser Matt Clifford echoed those concerns, describing the reported plans as "a big mistake".
"Right now is a critical moment for tech as an economic and national security issue," he wrote. "Tying up our most senior science and tech officials in a reorg wastes time and energy that's desperately needed for the actual substance."
DSIT was created in 2023 under former prime minister Rishi Sunak to bring together responsibility for science, AI, digital regulation and innovation. Since then it has overseen flagship initiatives including the UK's AI Opportunities Action Plan, investment in sovereign AI compute and the expansion of the AI Security Institute.
