UK needs a leader for Digital Britain plans

It’s time for Brown to stop messing about with job titles and political appointees

It might seem a little churlish to berate Gordon Brown over the status of a few of his junior ministerial posts, given that he has had rather more critical issues with senior ministers to worry about lately. But you’ll forgive us if we do so anyway.

At the moment, two of the top three government roles relating to the technology industry remain vacant after the latest reshuffle, and the third is soon to be vacated.

We have yet to see a new minister for digital engagement – formerly Tom Watson – or a minister for digital inclusion – previously Paul Murphy. Add to that the impending departure of the man meant to be championing Digital Britain, communications minister Lord Stephen Carter, and you have to wonder just how serious the prime minister really is about the industry.

Instead, we have a couple of Alan Sugar-style “celebrity” appointments, with Sir Tim Berners-Lee advising on opening up government data, and Lastminute.com founder Martha Lane Fox as digital inclusion champion.

Let’s look for a moment at the key words in those job titles – engagement and inclusion. The former is meant to lead the promotion of online public services, the latter to reach out to the digitally excluded. These are two pretty critical tasks if, as Brown has repeatedly promised, technology is central to the future of the UK economy.

This week sees the publication of the final Digital Britain report – a crucial document for UK IT, and one bound to create controversy. So who will see it through? Not Lord Carter, enobled purely to appoint him to a ministerial post so he could drive the plan through, yet off he goes, presumably back to a lucrative private sector role.

If the UK IT industry is not complaining in the loudest terms possible about its apparent downgrading within the government’s ranks, then it should be.

It’s time for Brown to stop messing about with job titles and political appointees. The UK needs a technology czar to oversee the development of digital Britain.