Civil Service: Digital Skills

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I believe that is actually the direction of travel. We are bringing in more of a capability-based pay scheme, which will allow us to track and keep these people who are in hot demand in a competitive market—as I know only too well. The Civil Service jobs are very interesting; if we could sort out a route for people to come in and work on digital data, and perhaps even go out again, and so improve our skills and work on these important projects, that would make a huge difference. The establishment of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—DSIT—is going to make a difference as well, in setting the tone and encouraging people to come and work on the very real data and skills challenges that we now have in the Civil Service.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the Question about skills but values are just as important as skills in the digital space. Could the Minister tell your Lordships’ House what the Government intend by way of promoting fundamental rights and freedoms in that space—whether it is the right not to be degraded, the right to personal digital privacy, the right not to be discriminated against or, crucially, the right to decisions on things that matter being made by a human being and not an algorithm?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises important points, and these are going to be debated a lot in the Online Safety Bill. In the Civil Service, we have a clear set of values—public service values. The Central Digital and Data Office is set up to look at how best to transform public services, but in a way that is appropriately balanced between using things such as AI and making sure that people’s rights and responsibilities are protected. We have the Data Protection Act and the Information Commissioner’s Office to help us in that process.