John Whittingdale, formerly minister for media and data at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), has fallen victim to prime minister Boris Johnson’s Cabinet reshuffle.
Whittingdale said from his Twitter account: “I am sorry to be stepping down as minister for media and data and saying goodbye to a great team of ministers and officials. It has been a privilege to play a part in shaping the future of UK public service broadcasting and in reforming our data laws using our new Brexit freedom.”
On 10 September, Whittingdale had tweeted about his pride in the National Data Strategy on its first anniversary. Guidance for the National Data Strategy was originally published in July 2019, when Theresa May was prime minister.
The National Data Strategy Forum, of which Whittingdale was co-chair, was announced in May 2021 as part of a government response to a consultation on the National Data Strategy held in late 2020.
On 22 June, Whittingdale and Sue Daley, director of innovation and technology at TechUK, co-chaired the first National Data Strategy Forum virtual discussion.
This reportedly convoked a “diverse group from across the UK’s data ecosystem, including business leaders, civil society leaders and data experts”. It approved five workstreams for the Forum, covering such topics as “unlocking the power of data”, using data to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, and “mapping stakeholder activity across the data ecosystem”.
Meanwhile, Julia Lopez, who had had responsibility for digital government at the Cabinet Office, is joining DCMS as a minister of state, although her portfolio has yet to be confirmed.
Johnson took away responsibility for government use of data from DCMS and gave it to the Cabinet Office in July 2020, just as Parliament was packing its bags for the summer recess.
At a TechUK Building the Smarter State event in September 2020, Lopez, as parliamentary secretary to the Cabinet and the minister responsible for the Government Digital Service (GDS) and Whitehall’s digital, data and technology (DDaT) function, spoke about that decision.
She said civil service reform was critical to defragmenting online government services, and part of that reform was the new division of labour between the Cabinet Office and DCMS – a “divide and conquer” approach, she said. “Responsibility for government data now sits with GDS and the Cabinet Office, while DCMS will boost the digital economy more widely,” she added.
Caroline Dinenage, who was appointed minister of state for digital and culture in DCMS on 13 February 2020 in an earlier reshuffle, has been sacked.
Meanwhile, at top ministerial level, Nadine Dorries is taking over from Oliver Dowden as secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport. Dowden is now minister without portfolio and co-chairman of the Conservative Party.
According to Institute for Government associate Gavin Freeguard, Dorries is the tenth DCMS secretary of state in the last 11 years.