written by

DPA Research Director, Professor Alan Brown

July 26, 2026

Scrapping DSIT won't fix Britain's AI problem. The Budget will show if anything else did.

Since Monday, a version of the same question keeps coming up: is scrapping the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology a disaster for British AI? The department was never the strategy. The real issue is whether the Cabinet Office, which now owns AI strategy and public sector adoption, gets the power DSIT never had: the ability to make other departments buy and operate differently. The genuinely damaging decision is moving the Government Digital Service to DCMS, separate from the AI adoption agenda. That removes the delivery arm from the strategy at the exact moment the strategy claims to be about delivery.

This government should be judged against three tests over the next six months: does the centre control the money, who owns supply diversification, and what gets signed while the furniture is being moved. The verdict rests on the first Burnham Budget, expected between mid-October and late November. If it brings spending conditions, a named accountable owner, and a public delivery record, the centralisation was real. If not, AI got a chair at the Cabinet table and very little else.

written by

DPA Research Director, Professor Alan Brown

The AI pilots look promising, the strategies read well, and yet adoption stalls. The problem is not what most people think it is — and the good news is that we have solved something very like it before.

Across the DPA network I hear the same story, whether in boardrooms, public sector teams, or consultancies. The AI pilots look promising. The strategies read well. Yet adoption numbers stall, value never quite lands, and the enthusiasm of recent years is giving way to something more anxious in 2026.

If that picture feels familiar, I want you to know two things. First, you are not alone. Second, the problem is not what most people think it is. 

This is the argument a new book, Making AI Work for Britain, written by DPA Research Director, Professor Alan Brown, available via Open Access for free download.