Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government which department will host the centre of expertise providing advice and support on technical, legal, commercial and financial aspects of generating and exploiting knowledge assets, as proposed in the terms of reference of the Knowledge Assets Implementation Study; and how this centre will work with the proposed National Centre of Expertise to provide specialist advice and guidance to the NHS on agreements for the use of health data.

The Knowledge Assets team, based in HM Treasury but supported by a range of departments, is working with strategic partners to develop an implementation strategy which is aligned with related policy and institutions across the public sector. This includes colleagues in the Office for Life Sciences, which has announced plans to establish a National Centre of Expertise within NHSX that will provide specialist commercial and legal advice to NHS organisations entering data agreements.

The implementation strategy remains in development and it is the intention to publish it later this year. It will respond to each of the ten recommendations made in the 2018 Budget report ‘Getting smart about intellectual property and other intangibles in the public sector’, including questions of future departmental responsibilities and reporting.