Credit: Fernando Zhiminaicela/Pixabay 

The recently created Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is made up of more than 1,700 civil servants, with staff members fairly evenly split between its predecessor departments.

According to one of the new department’s ministers – George Freeman, the minister for science, research and innovation – DSIT houses “around 935 staff from the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and around 800 staff from the former Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport”.

Freeman said that the tech department is still engaged in the process of “completing the transfer” of workers into the newly established organisation.

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“The staff data is live and so this number may move slightly ahead of the legal transfer date which will be in mid-June,” he added, in response to a written parliamentary question from former health secretary Matt Hancock – who now sits in the Commons as an independent MP, after having the Conservative whip removed after announcing his planned appearance on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!.

Freeman added that the formal transferral of staff to DSIT – the creation of which was announced in February – does not include those employed by government’s broadband rollout unit, BDUK “who will be transferring sponsorship to DSIT, but not employer”.