The department that wrote the UK's National Data Strategy has been abolished. The department that inherited it is being abolished too, and no one has said who gets it next.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. The UK National Data Strategy, published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 9 September 2020, promised a 2021 review of its skills commitments and a monitoring process to "enable us to plan for further interventions in the future" [1]. Neither shows up anywhere in GOV.UK's own publication index. The strategy's own page has not been substantively updated since 9 December 2020 [2], is still credited to a department GOV.UK confirms no longer exists [5], and the department that inherited it is itself being dissolved [6] [7]. Four documented mistakes: three stars.
The National Data Strategy was framed, in its own words, as a beginning rather than an answer: "it is not the final answer, but part of a conversation about the way we support the use of data in the UK" [1]. It opens by citing ONS figures that in 2018 the UK exported £190 billion in digitally delivered services and imported £90 billion more [1], the scale the strategy exists to grow. Six years on, the document that was supposed to keep that conversation moving has stood still while the department that wrote it, and the department that took over responsibility for it, have each gone through a full institutional life cycle of their own.
A review that was promised twice, and has not surfaced once
Annex A of the strategy, its list of actions and owners, commits the Cabinet Office and ONS to a specific, dated pledge: "We will train 500 analysts across the public sector in data science by 2021, through the Data Science Campus at the ONS, the Government Analysis Function and the Government Digital Service. This will be reviewed in 2021 with a new capacity building strategy meeting the emerging needs of government up to 2025" [1]. The government's own formal response to the strategy's consultation, published 18 May 2021, repeats the same sentence almost verbatim, adding CDDO alongside the original owners [3].
A search of GOV.UK's own publication index for the promised 2021 review, or the "new capacity building strategy meeting the emerging needs of government up to 2025" that was meant to follow it, returns nothing. The 2025 horizon that strategy was meant to reach has now itself passed, with no successor document found in its place.
The strategy makes a second, broader promise in the same vein. Under "Monitoring and evaluation," it states: "In order to drive successful implementation, we will develop a monitoring and evaluation process for the strategy. This will monitor the Strategy's delivery and help ensure that it is achieving its intended outcomes... We will provide further details of this monitoring and evaluation process in a future publication" [1]. That future publication exists. It is called the National Data Strategy monitoring and evaluation update, and it says the framework it describes "will track delivery of government's interventions, assess their effectiveness, and enable us to plan for further interventions in the future" [4]. It was published on 10 September 2021. Its own "Updates to this page" history records exactly one event: "Published 10 September 2021" [4]. Five years later, the framework built to plan further interventions has produced no visible further intervention of its own.
Outliving two departments
The strategy's publication page carries the same pattern. Its own "Updates to this page" section lists two events, both from 2020: "Published 9 September 2020" and "Last updated 9 December 2020" [2]. Nothing has touched the page since. It is still attributed to its original publisher, "Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023)" [2], a department whose own GOV.UK page states plainly: "Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023) was replaced by Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Department for Culture, Media and Sport" [5].
Custody of the government's data brief passed to the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) after that 2023 split; DSIT's own name appears as publisher on the strategy's related monitoring page [4]. DSIT is not settled either. Its own organisation page currently states: "This organisation is changing. It's being replaced by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Cabinet Office" [6]. The government's Machinery of Government changes fact sheet, published 27 July 2026, confirms the reorganisation is under way, describing DSIT's functions as being "redistributed to align with the Government's core economic and social agenda" [7]. Neither the fact sheet nor DSIT's own page states which of the three successor bodies takes ownership of data policy, or of the strategy itself.
A new initiative that does not mention the old one
Government thinking on data has not stood still everywhere. The National Data Library, a live initiative from the Government Office for Science, has been publishing steadily since July 2025, including a public attitudes research report in April 2026 and an Expert Advisory Group whose own page was last updated 2 September 2026 [8] [9]. Neither of those pages mentions the National Data Strategy at all. The document that is nominally still the government's core statement on data policy and the initiative most actively shaping government's current data thinking do not, on their own public record, refer to each other.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the evidence actually shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Skills pledge "will be reviewed in 2021 with a new capacity building strategy meeting the emerging needs of government up to 2025" [1] | No such review or successor strategy appears anywhere in GOV.UK's publication index; the 2025 horizon has now passed | A dated, specific commitment with no visible follow-through |
| "We will provide further details of this monitoring and evaluation process in a future publication" [1] | That publication appeared once, on 10 September 2021, and its own update history shows no entry since [4] | The monitoring process meant to guide future action has itself gone unmonitored |
| Strategy still credited to "Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023)" [2] | That department's own GOV.UK page confirms it "was replaced by" DSIT and DCMS in 2023 [5], and DSIT is itself now being dissolved [6] | A live document naming a department that no longer exists, inherited by a department that is next |
The mistakes, counted
A dated, specific review commitment with no visible follow-through (1). Annex A promises a 2021 review of the 500-analyst skills pledge, "with a new capacity building strategy meeting the emerging needs of government up to 2025" [1]. Neither the review nor the successor strategy appears in GOV.UK's own index, and the 2025 horizon it named has now itself passed.
A monitoring framework that produced one report and stopped (2). The strategy promises "further details of this monitoring and evaluation process in a future publication" [1] to "enable us to plan for further interventions in the future" [4]. That publication's own update history shows a single entry, from 10 September 2021 [4].
The strategy has outlived the department that wrote it, unedited (3). GOV.UK's own record shows the strategy last substantively updated 9 December 2020 [2], still credited to a department its own organisation page confirms was replaced in 2023 [5].
The department that inherited it is itself being dissolved, with no stated successor for the strategy (4). DSIT's own page describes itself as "changing" and being "replaced by" three other bodies [6], and the 27 July 2026 fact sheet announcing the change does not say which of them takes on data policy [7].
Credit where due
The strategy was honest from the outset about its own limits, calling itself "part of a conversation" rather than a finished settlement [1], and the government did deliver a formal consultation response, a few months later than the "early 2021" it had promised but delivered nonetheless, with specific, dated, owner-assigned commitments across dozens of rows in Annex A [1] [3]. The economic case it opens with, built on ONS trade figures and named, sourced studies rather than vague assertion, remains a genuine argument for why data policy matters [1]. And the National Data Library shows government has not simply stopped thinking about data; it has kept working on it, under a different name, without saying so.
Verdict
Three stars, from four documented mistakes. A strategy that promised to review itself, monitor itself and keep intervening has instead sat untouched for nearly six years while the machinery meant to own it changed twice. None of that makes the original document dishonest: its aims were reasonable, its economic case was real, and its early follow-through, however late, was genuine. But a "strategy" whose own review and monitoring commitments quietly lapsed, credited on paper to a department that no longer exists, handed to a department now scheduled to stop existing too, is not being managed as a live document. It is being carried forward by administrative inertia, and nobody in the paper trail has yet said who picks it up next.
Sources
- UK National Data Strategy, full text, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, published 9 September 2020
- UK National Data Strategy, GOV.UK publication page, last updated 9 December 2020
- Government response to the consultation on the National Data Strategy, published 18 May 2021
- National Data Strategy monitoring and evaluation update, GOV.UK, published 10 September 2021
- Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023), GOV.UK organisation page
- Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, GOV.UK organisation page
- Machinery of Government changes: Fact Sheet, published 27 July 2026
- National Data Library, Government Office for Science, published 29 July 2025
- National Data Library Expert Advisory Group, GOV.UK, last updated 2 September 2026