Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what the pay ranges at each grade are for Ofcom staff based (a) in and (b) outside London.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Ofcom makes remuneration information available through its annual report and accounts, including detailed information on the pay of senior executives. These can be found online here: www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/annual-reports-and-plans.
Remuneration policy is set by Ofcom’s People Committee. The basic salary for all colleagues is determined by considering each colleague’s responsibilities, skills and experience, together with relevant market benchmarking analysis. Ofcom conduct an annual equal pay audit for gender, ethnicity, and disability. They do not pay London weighting.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many Information Commissioner's Office employees were seconded to the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Costs for the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) budget were split equally between the DRCF member organisations. The Information Commissioner's Office contribution to the DRCF's budget for 2022-23 financial year was £81,754. This does not include costs for DRCF secondee roles funded by the ICO.
The Information Commissioner's Office provided three employee secondee roles to the DRCF over the 2022-23 financial year.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much funding the Information Commissioner's Office provided to the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Costs for the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) budget were split equally between the DRCF member organisations. The Information Commissioner's Office contribution to the DRCF's budget for 2022-23 financial year was £81,754. This does not include costs for DRCF secondee roles funded by the ICO.
The Information Commissioner's Office provided three employee secondee roles to the DRCF over the 2022-23 financial year.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many employees work for Ofcom’s Online Safety directorate as of 25 March 2024.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
As of March 2024, there are 202 colleagues in the Online Safety Directorate. Beyond the Online Safety Directorate, employees within Ofcom's Legal and Enforcement, Research and Analytics, Strategy and Research, and Corporate groups also work full time on Ofcom's online safety work.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what the pay ranges at each grade are for Information Commissioner's Office staff based (a) in and (b) outside London.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Information Commissioner's Office does not operate a location-based pay policy. The pay ranges by grade (for all locations) are as follows:
| Min | Max |
Level B | 23,119 | 26,023 |
Level C | 25,383 | 32,030 |
Level D | 31,689 | 40,418 |
Level E | 40,565 | 51,730 |
Level F | 52,944 | 67,530 |
Level G | 66,068 | 85,113 |
Level G2 | 84,193 | 108,611 |
Level H | 110,624 | 157,960 |
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many Ofcom employees were seconded to the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In 2022–23, Ofcom funded 4 FTE positions in the DRCF. Ofcom does not technically second employees to the DRCF, rather resources are allocated to support the core team.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much funding Ofcom provided to the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Ofcom's DRCF expenditure for 2022-23 is £82,000.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will provide a breakdown of the planned cross-government expenditure from (a) Departments and (b) arms-length bodies on (i) artificial intelligence, (ii) quantum technologies, (iii) engineering biology, (iv) semiconductors and (v) future telecommunications until financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government set out 5 critical technologies in the Science and Technology Framework, committing to develop a cross-government plan to optimise the science and technology system for each. We have publicly set out our approach to each critical technology, including spending commitments, which for most technologies cover figures for all departments. The government has spent over £2.5bn on AI since 2014. Over the next 10 years we have announced £2.5 billion for quantum technologies, up to £1bn on semiconductors and £2bn for engineering biology. The government has initially committed £70m on Future Telecoms by end of FY 2024/2025.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether the £20 billion research and development budget previously allocated to the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been allocated to her Department.
Answered by Paul Scully
The commitment the Government made to spend £20bn on public R&D investment in 2024/25 remains in place and is a cornerstone of our plans to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower.
At the Spending Review, HM Treasury allocated R&D funding across all Government Departments, of which the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) accounted for 71% in 2024/25.
The majority of BEIS R&D funding has been allocated to Department of Science Innovation and Technology, except for policy areas where responsibility sits with another Secretary of State. For example, the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio and R&D investment by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority transfers to the Department for Energy and Net Zero.
Budget allocations for the new Departments will be confirmed in the upcoming Main Estimates 2023/24.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to support (a) responsible research and development into and (b) the use of ethical practices on artificial intelligence by industry.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government is taking a number of steps to support responsible research and promote ethical practices in the AI industry. The AI Regulation White Paper sets out 5 cross-sector principles which will guide and inform the responsible development of AI. In addition, this Government has allocated £2 million for the development of regulatory sandboxes for businesses to make it easier for them to navigate the regulatory landscape so they can bring innovative products to market whilst doing so in line with our principles
We will also continue to take a leading role in global standards development organisations, such as the ISO and IEC, to develop global AI technical standards that uphold our democratic values. In this context, the AI Standards Hub led by The Alan Turing Institute, in collaboration with the British Standards Institution and the National Physical Laboratory, and supported by the UK Government, will aim to grow the UK’s multi-stakeholder contribution to the development of global AI technical standards.
£8.5 million funding has been made available via the Arts and Humanities Research Council in June 2022 June for ‘Enabling a Responsible AI Ecosystem’, the first major academic research programme on AI ethics and regulation of this scale. This is complemented by the £117 million investment secured this year for new UKRI Centres for Doctoral Training – on top of £100 million for existing Centres funded in 2019 – which include ethics and social responsibility courses for the PhD candidates they train.
Announced in April this year, the Government is also establishing a Foundation Model Taskforce with £100 million start-up funding to ensure sovereign capabilities and broad adoption of safe and reliable foundation models. The Taskforce will focus on opportunities to establish the UK as a world leader in foundation models and their applications across the economy, and acting as a global standard bearer for AI safety.
Finally, Crown Commercial Service’s AI Marketplace dynamic purchase system for public sector procurement of AI, which operationalised the recommendations of the Office for AI’s procurement guidelines, has a baseline ethics standard for suppliers into government.