GDS at risk as 'separate government agencies' try to 'take it back' complains Francis Maude

Whitehall mandarins are desperate to get their IT powers back, claims Maude

Former Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has lashed out at the state of the Government Digital Service (GDS), saying he still fears forces are at work to see the service "scaled back and unwound" under new head Kevin Cunnington.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference yesterday, and reported by Public Finance, Maude spoke in defence of a successful GDS that is now "being copied in America and Australia", but at the same time is victim to "old structures in government" at home that are trying to de-unify the service and "take it back" for their own ends.

A project like GDS, said Maude, "doesn't happen spontaneously".

"You have to drive it centrally, and departments, separate ministries and separate agencies prize their autonomy and they will always want to take it back, and that is now happening.

"Just at the moment when the UK has just recently been ranked top in the world for digital government, we are beginning to unwind precisely the arrangements that had led to that and which were being copied in America and Australia and also some other countries as well," continued Maude.

"This is, for me, a pity - there is a sense these old structures in government, which are essentially about preserving the power of the mandarins, are being reasserted."

Maude said that "cross-government platforms and cross-government services" are "absolutely the way of the future" and that there's a "continuing need for very strong central strategic leadership with the power backing it up to stop the wrong things happening".

Back in August, new GDS head Kevin Cunnington responded to talk of breakup by writing a blog in which he stated, categorically, "GDS will not be broken up".

"We remain part of the Cabinet Office with a clear mandate to lead digital, technology and data across government," wrote Cunnington.

"Everyone at GDS is carrying on with the work they've been doing."