Annex
DTI ORGANISATION STRUCTURE
NOTES ON THE NEW STRUCTURE
THE STRATEGY
UNIT
1. The new organisation includes a new Strategy
Unit to provide a significantly strengthened analytical and strategic
core at the heart of DTI. That team will include a new Chief Economist,
recruited by open competition, who will be able to speak, both
within and outside the Department, with authority on industrial
economic issues.
BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT AND
BUSINESS SUPPORT
GROUP
2. The new organisation brings together
the most customer-focused activities into a new Group that will
concentrate on managing and supporting relationships with key
business customers. It will include:
— business support. Our customers tell
us they are confused by the plethora and bureaucracy of schemes,
initiatives and other activities we offer to support businesses.
We plan to sort out that muddle, cutting out ineffective schemes,
simplifying our procedures and making sure the schemes have maximum
impact. We will do this through a new portfolio approach. At the
same time we will make sure that our delivery of business support
matches the best in business by focusing the Small Business Service
(SBS) more directly on delivery;
— sectoral links with business. Our
approach to sponsorship will become more keenly focused on understanding
better the competitive forces affecting industries and working
more closely with those firms where we can add real value in line
with our productivity priorities. The links between the sectoral
sponsorship role and other delivery partners such as the Regional
Development Agencies will be strengthened;
— regional policy. The regional dimension
is crucial for DTI. One of the key messages from our stakeholders
was that they were confused about who does what in the regions.
It will be important therefore to clarify the roles of the various
agencies. The Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) should continue
to set the regional economic strategies, while access to business
support should, as far as possible, be through Business Links.
We see a continued need for a strong DTI presence in Government
Offices, but we see their role changing, with a much greater emphasis
on influencing the whole range of government activity in the regions
which affects business and on playing a stronger role in helping
to shape policy and strategy in partnership with colleagues at
the centre. We also want Government Offices to develop their role
as the "eyes and ears" of the Department around the
regions; this will include monitoring the performance of RDAs
and other regional players.
3. To make roles and responsibilities clearer
in the regions, and to allow the Government Offices to focus fully
on their new role, we propose to transfer responsibility for Regional
Selective Assistance cases (other than the large cases) from the
Government Offices to the RDAs. The large cases, which have national
significance, will remain for Ministers to decide supported by
the Industry development Advisory Board and the professional advisers
in the department's Industrial Development Unit. Responsibility
for the Enterprise Grants and Smart schemes for SMEs will transfer
to the SBS.
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
AND INNOVATION
GROUP
4. We will create a new Group, to be headed
by someone with strong scientific and technological credentials,
to be recruited by open competition, who will work closely with
the Director General for Research Councils and the government's
Chief Scientific Adviser. Amongst other things, the Group will
work to integrate our policy-making on science, innovation and
technology with our productivity agenda. A key objective for the
Group will be to maximise the Government's significant investment
in science by providing a sharper focus on technology transfer
within DTI.
RESEARCH COUNCILS
5. We will retain the independence of and
build on the excellence of our science base. The Director General
for Research Councils will continue to be responsible for managing
our nearly £2 billion investment in scientific research.
The Director General will also sit on a newly established Knowledge
Transfer Strategy Committee, along with the head of Science, Technology
and Innovation Group and the Chief Scientific Adviser and others,
to ensure that we make the most of the knowledge that comes from
our investment in the science base.
COMPETITIVE FRAMEWORKS
6. This Group will bring together work on
setting the framework for business and markets including better
regulation, competition, the high productivity workplace, consumer
protection and company law. Importantly, the Group will also draw
in our Trade Policy and European Policy activities through which
we influence the development of European and international business
frameworks.
CORE SERVICES
7. This Group will have a vital role in
driving and delivering the change programme outlined here and
which will be developed over the next few months. A key challenge
for the Core Services Group Board and for those who work on the
development of policy and delivery of our corporate services—human
resources, finance, IT, accommodation etc—will be to draw
on wider perspectives in taking forward the modernisation agenda
in the Department.
8. The Core Services Group will also be
responsible for general policy in relation to Agencies and for
the management of a number of individual Agencies (including Companies
House, The Insolvency Service, The Employment Tribunals Service
and ACAS). The Group will continue to build on their strengths
in modern governance, customer focus and service delivery. The
Group will also be responsible for other delivery functions including
Export Control and Nuclear Proliferation and the Redundancy Payments
Service.
ENERGY
9. One of the objectives of our review was
to see if we could better integrate the Energy Group into the
rest of the Department. That is still the objective and we aim
fully to achieve it in about two years. But Energy is a large
and complex Group and the transition from a separate Group needs
to be carefully managed. A new Director General for Energy will
be appointed for a proposed two-year period to take forward the
work arising from the PIU Energy review and oversee and manage
the transition whilst ensuring that Energy policy issues continue
to be addressed at a very senior level.
13 December 2001
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