{"id":48007,"date":"2014-09-16T06:49:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T06:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=48007"},"modified":"2014-09-16T06:49:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T06:49:05","slug":"tech-firms-want-digital-ministers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=48007","title":{"rendered":"Tech firms want ‘digital ministers’"},"content":{"rendered":"

An influential group of major technology firms is calling on the UK to appoint “digital ministers” in every government department.<\/p>\n

TechUK – which represents more than 850 companies – also demanded rules to allow more skilled technology workers into the country.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to make sure the UK becomes a hub for digital skills,” said TechUK chief executive Julian David.<\/p>\n

The proposals will be presented to ministers on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Mr David said current options for migrating digital works – such as a special Entrepreneurs’ Visa to help start-ups – was not going far enough.<\/p>\n

“My members tell me it helps, but start-ups find it difficult to plot their way through the bureaucracy and the cost.”<\/p>\n

Bigger companies, he said, complained the process took too long.<\/p>\n

More than London<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr David praised the efforts of organisations like Tech City UK, the government quango helping technology start-ups in the Silicon Roundabout area of east London.<\/p>\n

But he said the digital economy must be a concern for the whole country.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got fantastic capability in clusters around the country.<\/p>\n

“When you look at places like Cambridge, there’s a pattern of success there for growing digitally-focused, very large, very successful companies such as [chip maker] Arm Holdings.”<\/p>\n

As part of its\u00a0manifesto<\/a>\u00a0for the next government, TechUK has said it wants a Cabinet-level minister representing the interests of the digital economy.<\/p>\n

“The next government should ensure there is cabinet-level leadership to develop and execute a single digital strategy that rolls up the digital economy, digitalisation of government and digital inclusion,” the document reads.<\/p>\n

“Other systemically important policy domains have a clear departmental lead and a strong voice at the Cabinet table – it is time the full significance of digital is recognised in the same way.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An influential group of major technology firms is calling on the UK to appoint “digital ministers” in every government department. TechUK – which represents more than 850 companies – also demanded rules to allow more skilled technology workers into the country. “You’ve got to make sure the UK becomes a hub for digital skills,” said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":48008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-48007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-akwasi-osei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}