Rashik Parmar MBE, CEO of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, has published an open letter to Peter Kyle MP, the new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Kyle quickly took to his new role and visited the television and radio studios last week to communicate his mission to Transforming public services through technologyparticularly the NHS, and build trust in the power of AI and emerging technologies.
THE letter The BCS supports Kyle in these missions and provides recommendations that have been endorsed by the BCS’s nearly 70,000 members, including business leaders, educators, practitioners, and policy makers. The BCS is dedicated to promoting responsibility and ethical practices in computing and digital technologies.
Recommendations include:
- Supporting Chartered Status for IT Professionals
- Publication of AI ethics policies by companies and public bodies
- Mandatory cybersecurity codes of practice and a requirement for company boards to appoint a person responsible for cybersecurity
The final recommendation is to prioritise ‘digital literacy’ in schools and a call for a strategy to broaden the appeal of a technology career. To underline the urgency of this message, the BCS points out that, based on a BCS analysis of ONS Labour Force Survey data, there are over half a million people who need IT training. Women absent from the IT sector This would be the case if the representation matched that of other comparable professions.
People over 50 and people with disabilities are also underrepresented.
Parmar argues that a policy focus on these areas can close the aspiration gap for individuals and help UK businesses compete globally.
It was a busy day of open letters. Another letter, coordinated by the UK Open Government Network further develops one of the BCS themes and calls on our new Prime Minister to strengthen the UK’s commitment to AI and rebuild trust between government and citizens.
Signatories to the letter include Transparency International, the Open Knowledge Foundation, OpenUK, Spotlight on Corruption, Involve, Open Data Institute, Register Dynamics, Open Contracting Partnership, Foreign Policy Centre and Icebreaker One. The letter and full list of signatories are available here here.
They all welcome Keir Starmer’s stated intention to “rebuild trust through actions, not words” and believe that an existing model of collaboration between government and civil society could help to achieve this.
Through its membership of the 75-nation Open Government Partnership, the UK government is working with civil society to develop plans for open government. It is believed that this process could be expanded to broaden representation, including from business, to deliver the government’s five missions.
The partnership hopes to support the government in a range of areas, including continued engagement with technology, including AI (and more broadly open data) to support economic growth and innovation while maintaining safeguards and ensuring the public interest, as well as in developing a cross-government anti-corruption plan overseen by a new anti-corruption champion. Transparency in public procurement to demonstrate that taxpayers’ money is being better spent is also a priority.
Kevin Keith, Chair of the UK Open Government Network and Co-Chair of the UK Multi-Party Forum, said:
“The Post Office scandal, the procurement of personal protective equipment, the opaque 2022 mini-budget that increases mortgages, the impact of corruption on UK growth and the disregard for public standards that has led to a collapse in trust demonstrate that open government is not a peripheral part of people’s lives: it is central. And that much more could be done. That is why we welcome the opportunity to work with a new government to relaunch this agenda, broaden participation in policy-making and rebuild trust.”
Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, said:
“Enabling innovation and driving UK economic growth through open technologies, including open data, is a fundamental aspect of open government. Changing technologies bring challenges, but also opportunities, and a surprising number of these are being addressed through openness. Civil society groups will work collaboratively with government on artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated decision-making and, more broadly, open data. Their expertise can support the government’s industrial strategy while maintaining safeguards and ensuring the public interest for all.”
