The Director General, Digital Centre Design was appointed in line with Civil Service Recruitment Principles. The Civil Service Commission was provided with the relevant background information requested, including Ms Middleton’s full employment history, when approving this temporary appointment. This included Ms Middleton’s CV where the reference to the secondment was made. This text was released in FOI2024-00256 Internal Review.

If the Honourable Member consults Contracts Finder, she will see that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has not awarded any new contracts to Public Digital since 4 July 2024.

No payments have been made by the Department to Public Digital. Payments were made by the Cabinet Office for a pre-existing contract which was inherited mid-contract by DSIT in the Machinery of Government change. Further details can be found on Contract Finder.

The Honourable Member can consult FOI2024-00289, Annex F.

The government is extremely concerned by the online abuse of sportspeople and will continue working with the sports sector to tackle this.

The Online Safety Act strengthens protections for public figures online. Harassment and hate crime are priority offences under the Act, requiring companies to proactively search for, remove and limit users’ exposure to such content and activity.

DSIT is working with Ofcom to develop a longer-term monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the Act’s impact, including assessing relevant data and crime statistics.

The numbers provided in the response to Question 67304 are the number of successful completed Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) projects in the specified years, and not the number of successful bids. The bids for the successful projects completing in 2022, 2023 and 2024 would have been made 3-4 years prior to completion. The number of applications in a given year may vary for many reasons and over this time period the number of applications may have been reduced by the Covid pandemic.

Innovate UK will continue to market the KTP across Northern Ireland to ensure businesses and universities understand the benefits it can bring.

The Independent Pornography Review looked at the relationship between online pornography and violence against women and girls; its findings and recommendations continue to be assessed in detail by the government.

The Review found violent pornography is common and widely accessible on mainstream pornography platforms, leading to acts like strangulation becoming normalised in real-life sexual encounters, with women and girls being the main victims.

Through the Crime and Policing Bill, the government will make pornography depicting acts of strangulation illegal and from 25 July the Online Safety Act will prevent children from accessing pornography through highly effective age assurance.

Cancer research is a critical priority for the Government. The Government is committed to ensuring that all cancer patients across the UK have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and UK Research Institute (UKRI) have made research inclusion a condition of its funding. Applicants to domestic research programmes are required to demonstrate how inclusion and health inequalities are being built into their research. NIHR’s Be Part of Research service on the NHS App, will provide patients with access to life-changing clinical trials and innovative therapies across the UK.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology works closely with the UK Cyber Security Council, the professional body for the UK’s cyber workforce, supporting its efforts to develop professional standards. The Council was formed on the back of work by a coalition of professional bodies including the British Computer Society, the Engineering Council and the Institute of Engineering and Technology. The Council and DSIT continue to work with these bodies to develop professional standards.

The Council’s work creating professional standards and a register of cyber professionals is building pathways to enable more people to join the cyber workforce. Professional registration is a mark of quality that is already required for persons permitted to secure certain government systems. A stronger cyber profession will make the UK more resilient against cyber threats.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology works closely with the UK Cyber Security Council, the professional body for the UK’s cyber workforce, supporting its efforts to develop professional standards. The Council was formed on the back of work by a coalition of professional bodies including the British Computer Society, the Engineering Council and the Institute of Engineering and Technology. The Council and DSIT continue to work with these bodies to develop professional standards.

The Council’s work creating professional standards and a register of cyber professionals is building pathways to enable more people to join the cyber workforce. Professional registration is a mark of quality that is already required for persons permitted to secure certain government systems. A stronger cyber profession will make the UK more resilient against cyber threats.

All departments must adhere to the UK Data Protection legislation to manage risk and protect personal data when they are using cross-sector data platforms provided by suppliers. All departments are controllers of the personal data they hold and are individually responsible for demonstrating compliance with the data protection principles, and take appropriate technical and organisational mitigations in line with the UK GDPR to reduce risk. Under the same legislation, all departments are required to appoint a data protection officer (DPO), who must be an adequately resourced expert in data protection to assess compliance of data platforms, provide advice regarding Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) to identify and mitigate risks.

The Government Digital Service has published the principles for securing personal data in government services, which includes a principle that outlines the actions that departments need to take for best compliance with the data protection legislation when they use platforms provided by third-party suppliers. The actions departments are expected to take include commercial agreements with robust terms and conditions for protection of data, appropriately assigned liabilities, risk assessments, audits, monitoring and oversight of compliance with processing terms and conditions as well as seeking further assurances of compliance from platform suppliers.

The Government Security Group and the Government Digital Service have developed the Security by Design Policy, which covers the management of third-party product security risks.

Government Digital Marketplace is a resource for departments and the wider public sector organisations to find reliable and secure technology for their digital projects. Departments are provided with guidance that covers features, security arrangements, standards, certifications and compliance information of supplier platforms, which fall under existing government frameworks.

Artificial intelligence is the defining opportunity of our generation, and the Government is taking action to harness its economic benefits for UK citizens.

As set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we believe most AI systems should be regulated at the point of use, with our expert regulators best placed to do so. Departments are working with regulators to provide clear strategic direction and support them on their AI capability needs. Through well-designed and implemented regulation, we can fuel fast, wide and safe development and adoption of AI.

Assessor feedback is provided to successful and unsuccessful applicants and is comprised of the comments supporting the scores given by assessors. A notification email states when feedback will be available, which is then published on the applicant’s Innovation Funding Service dashboard.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is increasing the number of individuals entering the UK’s cyber security workforce through CyberFirst, which has engaged over 415,000 young people with bursaries, competitions and training. The recently announced TechFirst programme will expand this effort across cyber and wider tech sector workforces.

Alongside this, DSIT fund the UK Cyber Security Council, established by Royal Charter, to set professional standards and maintain a practitioner register to simplify career pathways and improve workforce quality. These efforts are supported by international collaboration and regular labour market analysis to ensure a steady supply of talent across the cyber workforce.

The published 'DSIT Organogram of Staff Roles and Salaries' provides information on the number of civil servants earning over £100,000 and in other bandings. The latest information can be found here: DSIT Organogram of Staff Roles & Salaries - data.gov.uk.

The Government is committed to non-animal alternatives and will publish a strategy to support their development, validation and adoption later this year. While it is not yet possible to replace all animal use, we support approaches that replace, reduce and refine animal use in research, including organ-on-chip technologies. Data from alternative methods can support medicine development as part of clinical trial applications. The impact of individual technical advancements are however a matter for individual regulators to consider, and the Government strategy will help facilitate the inclusion and adoption of alternative methods in these regulatory contexts.

Fraud is a priority offence under the Online Safety Act. This means that since the illegal harms duties came into force in March, user-to-user services, including TikTok, must take proactive steps to prevent users from encountering fraudulent content on their platforms and swiftly remove it where it does. These duties apply to a range of fraud types, including romance scams, and are enforceable by Ofcom.

Ministers and officials in DSIT have regular discussions with in-scope platforms on the implementation of the Online Safety Act and their broader efforts to tackle fraud.

The Government has established expert stakeholder working groups to inform the development of policy on copyright and AI.

The Government convened the first meeting of these stakeholder working groups on 16^th July. Information relating to this group will be published on GOV.UK, which will include further details and a list of working group members.

The Government recognises the vital role of parents in supporting children’s online safety, and work on media literacy, including helping families build healthy digital habits, is an ongoing priority. DSIT has funded a range of media literacy projects, including parent-focused interventions, and commissioned research into parents’ needs. These have contributed to the evidence base highlighting what works and identifying areas where further progress is needed. Using these insights, the Government is considering the next phase of work in this area. Meanwhile, DfE publishes guidance and hosts parent-specific resources on its ‘Educate Against Hate’ website.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State gave on 4th July 2025 to Question 64258.

GOV.UK One Login’s total budget to onboard all central government services for the three years from 2022/23 to 2024/25 was £305.4 million, and is currently undergoing HMT approvals for a new Business Case which will run until 2027/28.

GOV.UK One Login works with third-party providers to help verify a user’s identity. These costs are included in the programme budget.

Companies House provides an alternative IDV route via Authorised Corporate Service Providers.

We are hugely optimistic about how AI will transform the lives of British people for the better – but advanced AI could lead to serious security risks.

The UK Government has been clear eyed about the risks AI could bring and have been clear on the need to balance these risks, for example via:

• The National Security Strategy, published in June, outlines the government’s focus on building the UK national security agenda for AI around three pillars: creating more national capacity; accelerating adoption in key sectors; and advancing understanding of the national security risks.
• The Chronic Risk Analysis, also published by the Government in June, assesses longer-term challenges and risks. It highlights that while AI offers significant economic and societal benefits, its rapid advancements pose enduring challenges, including outpacing safety measures, misuse, and potential disruptions to society and the economy. Balancing these risks and opportunities is crucial.
• Establishing the AI Security Institute (AISI) which was set up to equip governments with a scientific understanding of AI’s risks.