Tag: Matt Hancock

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Cabinet Office Minister, in South Africa on 3 May 2016.

My sincere gratitude to Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and Sir Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive of the British Council, for welcoming me here today at the opening of Going Global.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to such a distinguished audience of ministers, international education leaders and experts as well as participating in Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership in Cape Town this week.

Going Global has become the premier platform for higher education leaders from across the world to engage. It lives up to its name. And this is a very special conference: the first time ever held on the African continent. I am honoured to be participating.

In 1947, our great monarch, Her Majesty the Queen, aged 21, visited Cape Town with her parents. During her speech here, she dedicated her life to the service of the Commonwealth, talked about the challenges faced by young people and the need to work together.

Many years later, South Africa’s greatest son Nelson Mandela famously stated that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. While today young people face different challenges, these 2 messages – working together, and transforming the world through education – are as relevant as ever.

This week marks 22 years since the world celebrated, and South Africans participated in, those thrilling first democratic elections.

Over those 22 years, much has changed. South Africa has seen unprecedented development. Successive South African governments have reduced serious poverty in South Africa from 42% in 2000 to 29% in 2011. Yes there are bumps on the road – there always are – but in those 22 years, the world has developed faster than ever before.

And what does that mean? What does it really mean? It means over those 22 years that more people than ever before – millions here, billions around the world – have been lifted out of grinding poverty. Millions more have the chance to put their ingenuity and capability to good use, and to better their lives.

And it has not happened by accident. This unprecedented development over a generation has happened by a golden combination of courageous openness and the expansion of education.

The spread of openness: open democracy, open markets, open societies and open access to education for all have been the seeds of this change, because these things empower the people.

But all is not done. Challenges, deep challenges, remain. And while there is one hungry mouth to feed. While there is one fertile mind unnourished by the invigorating food of education. While illiteracy and want and poverty exist on this earth. It is our job, our task, and our duty, to empower and open and educate.

Let us today recommit to that goal.

Global importance of higher education

For in forging this open, empowered world the global connections of higher education are a major force for good, for innovation, for knowledge and for partnership.

We in the UK take great pleasure – and pride – in welcoming students from all over the world. We work hard to make sure they enjoy as well as learn. Our scholarships have provided life-changing chances for thousands across the globe and here in South Africa.

We are keen too to see more UK students study overseas and I want to thank the British Council for their work on this. And as technology marches on, the world opens up innovative, ways of learning – joint overseas campuses, joint degrees, and online learning – taking advantage of the digital revolution, to reach more young people.

Modern technology allows learning to spread better to every inch of humanity, in every corner of the globe. From here in Cape Town in the south to Nunavut in the north, let us celebrate this radical expansion of the potential for education, that all can benefit from the best teaching and education in the world.

Our research collaboration is second to none, with the growing reach of our Newton Fund supporting collaborative research.

We are privileged to work with so many of you. With Brazil and Columbia on biodiversity; with Egypt on health and water; with India on solar; and with China on life sciences. This is bringing the best people together in our universities and building bridges that go way beyond the research itself.

Our collaboration with South Africa is a great example of success, underpinning our relationship, with joint research to address issues in health, agritech and energy. Their work strengthens our knowledge, understanding and trust.

Growth in global demand, sustainable development goals and the UK’s response

But we know that when it comes to reaching our joint goal, more needs to be done.

Today’s generation of young people represents 1 quarter of the world’s population.

Over the next decade, 1 billion young people will enter the global labour force.

The number of students enrolling in higher education worldwide will increase by 21 million between 2011 and 2020. But only about 2% of these students will travel abroad for study.

In many of the developing countries, where demand for higher education is expanding fastest, domestic systems are not responding quickly enough to meet need.

And for a new generation of 200 million young Africans seeking a more prosperous future, this represents a demographic window of opportunity.

For while the challenges are real, meeting this need will require millions more in higher education.

We need to look beyond primary and secondary education to invest in young people to generate job-ready, productive and entrepreneurial graduates who will be the teachers, engineers, philosophers, diplomats, doctors, inventors and leaders of the future.

I profoundly believe that the ingenuity in every human breast is an asset, with a value incalculable. Let us unlock that potential together.

And while countries around the world face headwinds and risks, I look forward to working with you on your impressive and ambitious national development plan here in South Africa.

I can commit that we in the UK will play our part. Through our trade, growing as it is. Through collaboration, the theme of this conference. And through support for higher education specifically. Today I can commit to you our support for the SPHEIR programme – funded by the UK to catalyse ambitious, multi-sector and high-value partnerships to transform the quality, relevance, access and affordability of higher education.

SPHEIR will support partnerships that bring businesses and universities together to develop bespoke curricula, improve the quality of teaching and make higher education provision more affordable for students.

I want to thank the British Council and others for the role they will play in delivering the SPHEIR programme. The programme will have a strong focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and other countries where there is strongest unmet need.

Let us not see the window of opportunity close. Let us collaborate to deliver for the citizens who we serve.

Open government

Just as we must collaborate to support education, so too I believe we must collaborate to promote openness. Sunlight, it is said, is the best disinfectant. And Cape Town this week is host to the Open Government Partnership of 69 countries, across the world, committed to opening up government and tackling corruption. Openness supports the rule of law, builds economies and fights poverty.

And in this context, transparency is vitally important for the further development of effective national education plans, jobs and growth and in developing the international partnerships that Going Global will establish.

We shall only succeed by working together, through and with international organisations and partnerships. Later this month in London leaders from around the world are meeting at my Prime Minister’s Anti-Corruption Summit. This presents a big opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment to action, and I am very pleased that South Africa and other countries here today will be represented.

So let us rise to the challenges we face together. And let us seize the opportunities the world presents.

Conclusion

Six decades since Her Majesty spoke here, and 2 decades after South Africa opened to the world, that world has changed for the better. But many challenges remain. Our role, and our duty, is to ensure a bright, open future in the decades to come.

So let’s work together and make it happen.

I wish you an excellent conference.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, in London on 28 April 2016.

The reign of Edward II saw the development of the first postal system. Handwritten notes were added to letters that gave instructions to messengers.

The earliest known example simply said “Haste. Post haste”.

Over the next 200 years, these notes became more detailed instructions about who to deliver the message to, and where to find them. By the mid-15th century, the word ‘address’ had new meanings – it was a location and something written on the outside of an envelope.

But sending mail was expensive, and the number of letters very small, until Charles I created the national postal service in 1635 – for the first time, anyone could send and receive mail. And suddenly everyone needed an address.

So by the time of the first census in 1801, the UK had the comprehensive address system of street names and numbers that we recognise today.

Addresses are now part of our lives, our culture and our history. We know that the Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane. We know who lived at 221b Baker Street and are familiar with the significance of 10 Downing Street.

I have a personal interest and connection to addressing and its importance.

My first job was in my family’s software company, which wrote software to put postcodes on addresses, and helped you find an address from a postcode. I have an intimate knowledge of the Postcode Address File. I can vividly remember loading magnetic tape reels of address data into the computer to be processed. My first job involved putting postcodes on addresses and fixing the Y2K bug in COBOL.

But times have changed. I’ve changed career, and addresses are big data, not on big rolls of tape.

In government we are committed to open data and have demonstrated its value in the now 24,000 datasets published as open data.

This is a revolution in attitude and has sprung a revolution in services, improving the lives of the citizens we serve.

And addresses are the bedrock of our nation’s data infrastructure, of our digital economy. It is extremely important that a modern, digital economy has access to high quality, precise and open address data.

High quality, precise, and open. Let me go through these in turn.

High quality

I want to talk first about high quality address data.

Addresses are invaluable to our economy and our public services. Addresses help make sure that emergency services get to our door as quickly as possible; addresses help confirm our identity, they help us to access products and services.

It is true that everything happens somewhere, and as a result, high quality address data is fundamental. And this is the reason why I am so excited to be here today.

Because it is the people in this room that ensure we have high quality address data.

I want to pay tribute to the work local authorities do in creating accurate addresses across Britain through the role of the Local Land and Property Gazetteer Custodian, which is invaluable to the process of querying and matching addresses – driving up accuracy and improving the frequency of updates.

And any data cannot be high quality unless it is definitive. We cannot have different versions of the truth. I am extremely glad that we have a National Address Gazetteer and Geoplace to collaborate across local government, Ordnance Survey and the wider public sector.

And I have to say this: we have barely scratched the surface of the potential of this data.

The challenge and the opportunity that lies ahead is to ensure that high quality, precise address data anchors the UK’s digital economy and the transformation of our public services, and is used to improve the lines of the citizens we serve.

Precise address data

That brings me to my second point: precision.

In the past, address data primarily served local needs. Addresses connected people and place. The local postie knew exactly where the letterbox was, so could handle a bit of imprecision.

But in the last few decades, the uses of addresses have expanded exponentially. Addresses are not just for mail: addresses help connect us to the digital world.

We rightly demand immediate access to location-based services through our phones.

We expect to have our journey to work instantly mapped, and expect an Uber to find our exact address, not arrive halfway down the street. And for the millions who have ever put a rural postcode into a sat nav and ended up in the middle of nowhere, they know the importance of precision.

For digital services, too, to verify your identity, register to vote, get a driving licence, buy broadband, the uses of addresses are countless, from our emergency services, welfare provision, social care, council tax charging, and fraud prevention. The address is the point of reference that anchors people throughout these services and across geographical boundaries.

So precision is vitally and increasingly important. And this brings me to the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). Just as modern 21st century technology has replaced the magnetic tape reels of the past, we now have new needs and new uses for addresses that cannot be met with imprecise identifiers.

The UPRN is the jewel at the heart of the addressing system. It links address data across a diverse range of systems and services. The UPRN facilitates greater accuracy and immediate data sharing and matching – delivering better services and better outcomes for citizens.

In short, it links an address in human form to a specific place on this earth. The name of a place in the language of Shakespeare to the longitude and latitude that can drop a package on your doorstep.

And as we look to the future – if we want to live in smarter cities and smarter homes then we need to exploit the benefits of precise interconnected data. It is difficult to imagine a world of driverless cars, of drone delivery, and truly integrated public services, without realising the benefits of high quality, precise data.

The case for ensuring we have accurate and precise address data has never been so acute. And it is the UPRN that provides the precision that 21st century users demand.

Open address data

So third I want to talk about openness. If we make things open, we make things better.

Since 2010, the UK has led the world on open data. Just last week it was confirmed that yet again we are ranked first in the world on the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer.

On data.gov.uk we have record numbers of datasets for citizens and businesses to re-use, boosting the UK economy and driving positive disruption in fields such as transport, financial services and retail.

But we cannot rest on our laurels.

We need to remove licensing barriers and paywalls. We need to improve the quality and reliability of government’s data infrastructure.

And we need to continue to make data open. If we make data open, the quality of that data is improved. Errors are spotted, new solutions are suggested and standards are raised.

If we put restrictions on data, we restrict its quality and its use. Data should be allowed to flow. Data should be used and re-used.

It is critical that businesses have the ability to create new and innovative products without being hampered by cost, by licensing conditions, or the inertia caused by uncertainty and doubt.

This will substantially reduce friction in the public sector and wider economy, thereby encouraging data-driven innovation and public service transformation.

The evidence for opening up data assets is overwhelming.

Recent research commissioned by the Open Data Institute found that opening up core public sector data assets will contribute an additional 0.5% of GDP every year.

UK companies using, producing or investing in open data have a combined annual turnover of over £92 billion, employing over 500,000 people.

A global market powered by open data from all sectors would create an additional $3 trillion to $5 trillion a year.

Budget announcement

So let me link my three themes: high quality, precise, open data.

In the Budget we set aside £5m to develop options for an authoritative address register that is open and freely available.

This is extremely exciting. It is critical that address data is made open. The potential benefits are enormous.

Just as the release of GPS data in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan kick-started a multi-billion dollar proliferation of digital goods and services, and GPS and mapping services now contribute to an industry worth over $90 billion a year in value to the US economy, so open addresses have huge potential now.

When Denmark created an open address register the economic impact represented a return on investment in excess of 3,000%.

I want the UK to be the best place in the world to set up and grow a data business. But in order to achieve this, we need to make future innovation simpler and remove the barriers that stifle progress.

Innovation is impossible without being open to new ideas and new solutions – without being prepared to be bold.

So we are working across government, with enthusiasm at the highest levels, to explore options for an open address register. There is lots of work for us still to do but we are ambitious and excited by the potential impact that an open address register could have.

And I pledge today that we want to work with you, hear your thoughts and harness your creativity to make this happen.

Conclusion

I believe that countries that find ways to offer their businesses and public services reliable, trusted access to high quality data – will reap similar benefits to countries that led on the provision of access to roads, transport and water in previous centuries.

During Edward II’s reign – there were just a few thousand letters being distributed around the country each year. It took the establishment of the national postal service in 1635 dramatically to expand that market and to create the need for every property and place to have an address.

Let us take the next step now and build Britain’s place as the most vibrant, innovative place upon earth, to help fulfil our mission of improving the lives of the citizens we serve.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Cabinet Office Minister, at King’s Cross in London on 26 April 2016.

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to be here.

I’d like to thank Digital Catapult and Imperial College’s Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering for their support in setting up and running this event.

King’s Cross has certainly changed a bit in the last few years. Regeneration and investment has radically revitalised this part of London, and it’s exciting to see the results.

If you were to climb up on the roof, you’d probably be able to see the Emirates Stadium just up the road. And just beyond that, Stoke Newington, another area regenerated, which began life as the end-point of the New River, an artificial waterway built in the 1600s to bring fresh water from Hertfordshire down to central London.

Now, one of the engineers on that impressive project was Henry Mill, who later patented the first typewriter.

Typewriters transformed the way business was done – in government and in business too. Not just because they made the old process of writing everything by scribe quicker and more efficient, but because they can do a particularly clever trick.

Using a simple sheet of carbon paper, a typist could make 2 copies of the same document at once. One copy for the office, one copy for the customer to take away.

The carbon copy gave you simple, instant, distributed, consensual data. It gave some guarantee against tampering, because you’d have to tamper with both copies to make them match. And because different parties held different copies in different places, there was a lot of security built-in.

OK, so it’s not exactly a blockchain, but I hope you can see my point. There was a degree of trust not previously possible without huge expense, built into that simple carbon copy system.

If your copy matches mine, we can both agree that we both know the truth.

Fast forward 400 years, and to modern government.

Once again technology is radically transforming the way we do things.

And the story of digital transformation in government isn’t just about websites and computers.

It’s about changing the business model. Not just about doing the old things in new ways, but changing how we deliver for our customers: the citizens of this country.

And part of that story is about using new technology to build and foster a new culture of trust. Within government and further afield.

Let me explain how government reached this point.

We have worked very hard in recent years to transform government, to bring it up to date with the internet age. We’ve made great strides, but there’s still a very long way to go.

Crucially, government cannot bury its head in the sand and ignore new technologies as they emerge. That’s partly what happened with the web.

As it grew in the late 90s and the 2000s, government lagged behind, because it wasn’t able to get to grips with the potential the web offered.

We’ve fixed that now. But we cannot let it happen again by standing still.

Since 2010, we’ve been working to make government more efficient, and using technology as a vital tool for achieving that.

The problem in 2010 was that the internet had, in the preceding years, become part of the fabric of the nation, but it was not part of the fabric of government.

That’s why we established the Government Digital Service. We took the mess of hundreds of government websites, and built just 1 to replace them – GOV.UK.

But transformation goes much deeper than just websites.

We started work on transforming services. But replacing a paper-based process with a digital equivalent on the web isn’t good enough. No matter how well we put it on the web. It’s still an old process that’s been digitised.

To make real progress, we have to be much smarter.

That’s why we started building what we call ‘government as a platform’. That little catchphrase sums up a huge amount of work building many different things – not just actual technical platforms, but also standards, design and service patterns, data registers, and the skills and capability of the people who deliver digital services, and indeed the whole business of government.

All those things – the platforms, the standards, the legacy technology, the service design – come together as an ecosystem of interconnected components that departmental teams can use to assemble their services.

They will only do that, though, if they actually trust those components in the first place. So delivering transformation is just as much about fostering a new culture of trust across government.

The old culture depended on departmental silos, and services designed and delivered within them. Instead we’ve got to work across those silos. And that depends on trust.

This brings us to the benefits of the blockchain.

Blockchains – distributed ledgers, shared ledgers – are digital tools for building trust in data.

Rather than a single central authority demanding trust and declaring: “I say this data is correct,” you have the distributed consensus of everyone in the chain, saying in unison: “we agree that this data is correct.”

They bring with them built-in integrity and immutability. You can only write new data, nothing is ever removed or deleted.

Now blockchain technology is not going to solve every problem, or work in every context. When a trusted body already exists, for example, that can hold canonical data, that’s often the best solution.

But the fact that data held in the blockchain comes with its own history, and that history is a fundamental part of proving its integrity, this fact is enormously powerful.

What does it mean for us in government? The main reason you’re here today is to help us find answers to that question.

We’ve already committed to supporting the Alan Turing Institute with £10 million to investigate digital currencies and distributed ledger technologies, and we’re excited to explore any and all possible use cases for blockchains in government.

We’re exploring the use of a blockchain to manage the distribution of grants. Monitoring and controlling the use of grants is incredibly complex. A blockchain, accessible to all the parties involved, might be a better way of solving that problem.

Bitcoin proved that distributed ledgers can be used to track currency as it is passed from one entity to another. Where else could we use that? Think about the Student Loans Company tracking money all the way from Treasury to a student’s bank account. Or the Department for International Development tracking money all the way to the aid organisation spending the money in country.

These are just some of the ideas we’re considering in government. We’re still in the early days. That takes time, and a lot of careful thought.

And we want to hear from you. We’re relying on your brains to guide us, to help us take the next steps, and the right steps.

Today is all about blockchain brainstorming.

Conclusion

Today is about exploring future technologies. Not only new ways to do the old things, but how, just as with the typewriter, we can reshape the state to make the best of modern technology.

And how in doing so, each one of us can, through each step forward, play a small part in a much bigger mission: the mission to improve the lives of the citizens who we serve.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, at St Thomas More Catholic School in London, on 24 March 2016.

The man this school is named after, Thomas More, was a man of principle. He wrote of a utopian society governed entirely by reason, where women and men enjoyed equal access to education.

When he was making this argument, in the 15th and 16th century, this was a revolutionary egalitarian idea.

He’s also, as chance would have it, the patron saint of civil servants.

But fast forward 500 years from Thomas More’s day, and we still have work to do to stamp out disadvantage in society and to open up access to the world of public service.

The Civil Service is the engine of government, under the democratic direction of politicians like me, but responsible for driving forward improvements to this country.

It’s an amazing place to build a career, filled with interesting people and important, exciting work.

If you join the Civil Service you could be a diplomat with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. You could work on groundbreaking infrastructure and aid projects, on defence to keep our country safe or on health to protect our wellbeing.

You could help make our schools and universities work better to educate young people, or improve our justice system, better to rehabilitate offenders.

You can be keeping hearts beating one day and working at the beating heart of politics the next. You could be the next James Bond, the next Kofi Annan, or if you’re a Harry Potter fan the next Arthur Weasley.

There’s a world of opportunity in public service. And we need to do more to make sure everyone has access to that chance.

To do that, we need to hold up a mirror to ourselves and see what we must do to improve.

Holding up a mirror

I want everyone to be able to reach their potential. And I want the Civil Service to make the most of all of Britain’s talents; to reflect modern Britain.

The Civil Service has already made huge progress on equality in terms of race, gender and sexuality. It is now more diverse than it has ever been and compares favourably to many public and private employers.

The proportions of people from ethnic minorities or declaring a disability are at historic highs; and women make up 54% of the Civil Service.

But the representation of all these groups at senior levels is still far too low.

That’s why one of the first things I did when I took this job was commission a report into diversity in our graduate Fast Stream, because you can’t fix your problem if you aren’t willing to hold a mirror up to yourself.

What we found was that the most glaring inequality exists beyond legally protected characteristics, when you look at social background.

One in 3 people employed in Britain today are working class. That compares to less than 1 in 10 applicants to the Fast Stream, and less than 1 in 20 successful applicants.

On this measure the Civil Service has a less diverse intake than Oxford University.

Let’s get out there and change this.

Reaching out to the Public

We’re facing up to the problem. So how do we fix it?

Your gender, or the colour of your skin, or the postcode you were born in or any other circumstance of your birth, these things should not dictate your chances in this world.

The public sector mustn’t shut people out. It should reach out.

This isn’t just the right thing to do. It also makes good business sense to bring in as many different ways of thinking as possible.

All the evidence shows that organisations work better when they have people from different backgrounds, different perspectives.

Publicly traded companies with male-only executives perform worse than those with both male and female executives, and higher ethnic diversity is linked to increased earnings.

This is especially important in a business where you face the range of challenges we do in the UK government.

The public sector’s work is far too crucial for those involved to sit in an ivory tower. Everyone in government has a duty to do their best to serve the public. So we are setting up a schools outreach plan for civil servants, and I want to encourage every civil servant to reach out, to devote an hour each year to visiting schools and inspiring future generations to work across government.

How we’re going to lead

And I want our public services to set an example, blazing a trail for other employers to follow. Today we’re publishing our 2016 Talent Action Plan, which sets out the progress we’ve made in the past year and the steps we’re taking to tackle inequality and extend social mobility going forward.

We’re going to reform the Fast Stream selection process, reach out to university campuses where we haven’t in the past, and boost our internship programmes and our mentoring schemes.

But just because you choose not to go to university that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an opportunity to serve your country.

So we’re going to take on 30,000 new apprentices in the next 4 years, with at least 750 Fast Track apprenticeships each year.

In 2050 I want the top civil servant, the Cabinet Secretary, to be someone who came into the service as an apprentice. You may be sitting in this room.

I want to reform our system to be more sensitive to social and economic background.

We have a government that exists to serve the British people, and it should not and cannot shut any of the British people out.

But you can’t manage what you can’t measure. We can only truly tackle the glaring inequalities that exist in our workplaces if we face up to them, and if we know what to look for. And at the moment there’s no agreed way of looking at this problem.

Which is why today I can announce that we’re joining with dozens of major businesses to develop a social mobility index – a ground-breaking new standard measure of social and economic background.

We’re going to use this index to boost social mobility among the biggest employers in every sector of the economy.

The British don’t like to discuss things like their parents’ background, particularly at work.

But it’s incredibly important that we have a proper measure so that we can make sure everyone has the same opportunity to succeed, whatever the circumstances of their birth.

The Civil Service needs to be a leader, driving change by being the most inclusive employer in the world. We should reward effort over upbringing. Potential over polish. Ability, over what accent you happen to have.

Conclusion

My colleagues and I in government have a duty to serve the British public to the best of our ability. You have a different duty.

You have a duty to yourself to make sure that you stand up and do everything that you’re capable of.

I firmly believe that people exceed your wildest expectations when you give them a chance.

Whoever you are, if you are willing to work for it there’s a place for you to serve your country and to achieve your potential in the public sector.

500 years ago Thomas More was fighting to open the doors of society to the disadvantaged. Today that battle is still going on, and it’s a fight we must win both for the sake of principle and of practicality.

To do this we have to throw open the doors of government to new talent. Don’t let yourself be held back, and we are on your side.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, at Portcullis House in London on 8 March 2016.

It’s a great privilege to be here today with you all, and it’s a joy to be hearing from these inspirational public servants.

I’ve been an MP for nearly 6 years now, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time here in Portcullis House.

It’s named after a Tudor badge that has been the symbol for our Parliament for over 500 years. It denotes fortitude, strength and stability.

Castles and ramparts and gates have for millennia been erected to keep people out. That is a perception we must change.

In my first speech as Cabinet Office Minister I said that to govern modern Britain, the Civil Service has to be more like modern Britain.

Whether it’s a matter of social background, or gender, or ethnicity, or sexual orientation, we must end the injustice of unfair discrimination.

Indeed one of the reasons I’m in public service is because I passionately believe that everyone should have the chance to reach their potential, whatever their background.

I came to Westminster to fight for that principle and I intend to do so with every tool at my disposal.

I want my daughter to have every opportunity that my sons have. And like all of you here today, I pledge to do my duty to build a world in which all can succeed.

I’m proud of this great feminist cause, and I’m proud to call myself a feminist in making that pledge.

This is a moral quest. Indeed I believe it to be a self-evident, cornerstone British value.

We are all individuals with strengths, weaknesses, hopes and dreams. For each of us these things add up to the unique contribution that every one of us can make.

Yes, it’s a moral quest, but it is also deeply practical.

My core mission as Cabinet Office Minister is to help the government deliver more than the sum of its parts.

A crucial and integral part of that is opening our doors to the best talent, making sure all people have the opportunity to grow and excel.

It’s good business sense to bring in as many different ways of thinking as possible. Difference promotes innovation and strength.

International Women’s Day is a chance to hold up a mirror to ourselves. To do so we must take a good hard look at where we are, where we need to go, and how we get there.

So let’s look at where we are. Today, women make up 54% of our civil servants. A record 44% of new public appointments last year were women.

The Bridge report I commissioned recently found that we’re improving gender access to the upper echelons of the civil service.

Since the launch of the Talent Action Plan in 2014 we’ve improved support for returning mothers, increased the number of job shares, and put a halt to all-male interview panels.

But as you climb higher the numbers get worse. 60% of junior employees are women, but only 40% of the Senior Civil Service.

It’s striking that in 1996 – the year the portcullis was officially recognised as Parliament’s emblem – the figure was less than half that.

Research shows the gender pay gap is closing, and in some cases has closed.

We’re making progress, and this should be celebrated. But parity hasn’t yet been reached everywhere, and so there is more to do.

First, we must turn our commitment to equal opportunities in public leadership roles into meaningful action.

I want to see an end to single-sex shortlists and selection panels for public appointments. Whilst this is currently the case in the majority of competitions, I want it to be the standard across the board.

This shows we’re serious about gender parity, and I hope that the private sector takes notice and follows suit.

Next, our new digital advisory group for the government’s digital revolution is made up of 50% men and 50% women. And we intend to have more women on boards in the future.

I want more women to consider a career in the Civil Service, and I want those that are here to be proud of their job and their achievements.

So we’re going to make the selection and promotion process as transparent and fair as possible by tackling bias, conscious or otherwise, and making name-blind recruitment standard.

There’s a lot more to do, and I’m going to set out our full strategy to boost social mobility in the Civil Service in the spring.

So, to those storming the ramparts of injustice, I support you. Let us tear down these barriers to fairness for all.

Today is an important day but one day isn’t enough. We must make sure our top institutions are bastions of equality and opportunity.

They must be exemplars for the society we want to build. A society where everyone has the chance to succeed, and to serve their country.

And I hope that you too will continue to be standard bearers for that society.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, at the Institute of Directors in London on 3 March 2016.

It’s incredibly fitting that we’re meeting today in this wonderful building, with its rich history. Until 1978 this was home to the United Service Club for senior military personnel – who 75 years ago were defending our homes, businesses and way of life against foreign aggressors.

I’m told Ian Fleming was a regular here while he served, and I can’t help but think of a line from the new cyber-savvy Q in Skyfall:

I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pyjamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.

I’m glad to see you all made it out of your pyjamas this morning. But Q had a point. It’s not just soldiers, sailors, airmen, and policemen we need to protect our assets and livelihoods today. Today a line of code can ruin lives just as any bomb or bullet.

In a digital, interconnected world, we need the involvement of everyone in society to keep that society safe – particularly the leaders of the business world.

Much of our critical national infrastructure is in your hands, critical infrastructure like our energy and water supplies, our transport system and our phones.

And it goes beyond that, increasingly to our e-mail and social media correspondence, even our credit card details and online accounts.

With the advent of smart products and intelligent environments, this smart world already includes my watch, and one day soon perhaps my fridge or my car.

If the predictions are true and 200 billion smart devices exist in the world in 2020, we are going to rely hugely on the private sector to keep us safe in cyberspace.

In protecting this infrastructure the interests of government and business align. We are all invested in the success of the digital economy and we all have a shared responsibility to keep it secure.

It’s the duty of government to keep people safe. We will play our part, but in the war against cybercrime, you’re the Home Guard.

Recognition

That job boils down to 3 imperatives: recognition, response, and reward. We need to recognise the scale of the challenge. We need to respond to it. And we need to reap the rewards of the digital revolution.

We’re moving away from the 20th century all-encompassing state to a smart government you can hold in the palm of your hand.

We’re uploading the state, and have one of the most digitally advanced governments in the world.

That enables us to provide targeted and bespoke services driven by real people, not Whitehall diktat. That opportunity can’t be ignored.

But as we move more services and operations online the range of potential targets increases. Our mission to deliver better services for citizens is entirely dependent on our ability to protect our networks, users and data.

And so is yours. If people don’t think the information you’re storing online is safe, that’s a business risk. They expect you to get it right.

Financial loss can be measured and insured against, but the trust your customers and suppliers place in you cannot.

As one of the most advanced digital economies in the world, with 12.5% of our economy now online, we’re in a unique position to benefit from digital. But that makes us uniquely vulnerable to cyber attack too.

Ninety percent of large businesses and 74% of SMEs reported a breach in the past year. The average cost for a severe breach is nearly £1.5 million at a minimum for big firms. For SMEs it’s over £300,000.

Last summer GCHQ responded to twice as many incidents against networks of national significance as in the same period the year before – and the figure is rising rapidly.

The volume and sophistication of attacks is increasing, as is the range of perpetrators.

Response

So let us first recognise the challenge. Next let us co-ordinate our response.

The report the Institute of Directors is publishing today shows that your members increasingly appreciate the seriousness of the threat, but that too many are under-prepared for dealing with it. That leaves you open to attack.

This matters to me. So we’re going to invest £1.9 billion over the next 5 years in cyber security.

We’re going to make the UK one of the safest places to do business online, scaling up disruption activity, making us a tougher, more resilient target and making us better able to protect our interests in cyberspace.

The report you’re launching today underlines the growing importance of sharing information between government and industry.

In future that will only become more imperative. That’s why we’re going to establish a new National Cyber Centre – a single point of contact for business, and a unified platform that provides all the support, advice and intelligence industry needs.

Through it we will bring together responsibilities from across government, build new capabilities and share more information with industry, so we can handle major incidents in real-time, around the clock.

The National Cyber Centre will cover critical national infrastructure, as well as wider business, and will reach into the world of secret intelligence as part of government.

But the scale of this challenge is too great to be tackled by any one organisation. It’s a fight we can only win if business, academia, law enforcement and government stand shoulder-to-shoulder, working together both in this country and internationally.

We must create a world-class cyber security ecosystem where innovation thrives, businesses get the investment they need, and our shared expertise evolves as quickly as the threats we face.

That’s why we’re setting up a £165 million cyber and defence fund to invest in the next generation of cyber-security companies.

We’re working with startups through our Early Stage Accelerator programme, and we’re establishing a cyber security innovation centre in Cheltenham.

We’ve also launched our third annual cyber governance health check, providing companies with confidential tailored reports allowing them to address their weaknesses.

Fifty-eight percent of FTSE 350 firms now use our ‘10 Steps to Cyber Security’ guidance, and we’ve published tailored guidance and free e-learning for SMEs. I recommend you use it.

If we’re hard-nosed in recognising the challenge and the opportunity and respond as swiftly as we can, we have a better chance than anyone of surviving and thriving in the new digital world.

Reward

So, third, the rewards on offer are extremely valuable. In government it means we can use digital to redesign how the state operates and empower citizens to take control of their services.

For the private sector too, cyber security offers huge opportunities. The industry was worth £17.6 billion to the UK in 2014, employing 100,000 people – up 40% in a year.

We’re in the top 5 exporters in the world, with the global export market worth £28 billion and growing by 20% each year.

All of us – industry, academia and government alike, need to step up to the skills challenge in order to address this growing market.

That’s why I can announce today that we’re significantly expanding our Cyber First programme.

Currently, 20 talented undergraduates are sponsored through university and then guaranteed 3 years of public or private sector cyber security work. We’re going to boost this to 1,000 students by the end of 2020.

I want to do everything we can to make sure the next time this country produces an Alan Turing, an Ada Lovelace or a Tim Berners-Lee, we give them the tools and opportunities they need to change the world, as we’ve done so many times in the past.

And it’s good business sense for you too to take on more apprentices and to nurture the best talent. It puts you in a position to capitalise on the rewards offered by the cyber industry, and it helps us as a country close the gap between where we are and where we need to be.

Conclusion

So let’s work together to recognise the challenges we face, respond energetically to them, and make sure we have the capability to reap the rewards of the cyber revolution.

The challenges have changed since 1903, when the Institute of Directors was set up. That was the same year as the first transatlantic radio broadcast – a 54-word greeting from President Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII that ushered in a new era of global wireless communications.

But the principles are the same. Members of this organisation have witnessed several technological revolutions and successfully steered this country’s industry through them.

Today the internet presents the most radical step forward in humanity’s collective capability the world has ever seen.

It is already a vast opportunity. And so too a new threat. Let us rise to the challenge together and seize the rewards for humanity that this great innovation offers.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, in the House of Commons on 1 March 2016.

This government is committed to making government more transparent, so taxpayers can hold the state to account both on how their money is being spent and how decisions are made which affect their lives.

The Freedom of Information Act is one of the pillars on which open government operates. We are committed to supporting the Act. Yet after more than a decade in operation, it is appropriate to review, in the whole, how it has operated in practice, and establish how its mechanisms could be improved.

Consequently, in July 2015, we established an independent, cross-party Commission on Freedom of Information. The Commission has now submitted its report. Given the keen public and media interest in the report, we are promptly publishing it alongside our preliminary views on its recommendations.

We are very grateful to the Commission for its thorough and thoughtful work in this significant and complex area. The Commission’s review has attracted considerable interest and should be commended for an even-handed approach to gathering evidence from across a very broad spectrum. This approach is reflected in the balanced set of measures put forward in the report.

The Commission makes 21 specific recommendations. It notes that whilst some of its recommendations require legislation, other improvements can be made without legislative change. The government’s views on some of the most salient recommendations are as follows:

Charging for Freedom of Information requests

The government agrees with the Commission’s view that it is not appropriate to introduce fees for requests, over and above the existing narrow circumstances in which a requestor can be currently charged for disbursement costs. We appreciate that some public authorities are concerned by the burdens imposed on them by the Act and the associated costs. However, the introduction of new fees would lead to a reduction in the ability of requesters, especially the media, to make use of the Act. We believe that transparency can help save taxpayers’ money, by driving out waste and inefficiency.

The Cabinet veto

The Commission recommends the introduction of a narrower and more limited veto provision. The government agrees with the Commission’s analysis that Parliament intended the executive to be able to have the final say as to whether information should be released under the Act. In line with the Commission’s thinking, the government will in future only deploy the veto after an Information Commissioner decision. On the basis that this approach proves effective, we will not bring forward legislation at this stage.

Updating practice guidance

The government agrees with the Commission’s recommendations to review the operation of section 45 of the Act to ensure that the range of issues on which guidance can be offered to public authorities under the code of practice is sufficient and up to date. Public authorities should have sufficient guidance and advice to properly manage information access requests and to continue the government’s mandate of being the most transparent government in the world. This does not require legislation.

Publication of Freedom of Information statistics

The Cabinet Office already publishes detailed statistics on a quarterly and annual basis on the operation of the Act within central government. It is important that other public authorities should be similarly transparent. We know that many other organisations already publish such data, but this does not happen consistently. The publication of such data not only provides accountability to the public, but allows the Information Commissioner to identify and target poorly performing public authorities more effectively. We will therefore issue guidance in the revised section 45 code of practice to set a standard that public authorities with 100 full time equivalent employees or more should publish such information.

Public interest and risk assessments

Noting that the Commission did not provide a formal recommendation regarding risk assessments, the government agrees with the Commission’s analysis that considering the public interest remains the best way to assess whether specific risk assessments should be released. This will allow the important balance between providing robust protection for sensitive information and transparency to be maintained.

Handling vexatious requests

The Commission recognises the difficulty that genuinely ‘vexatious’ requests can place on public authorities. We agree with the recommendation of improved guidance, via a revised code of practice, to allow public authorities to use section 14(1) in the rare cases where it is necessary and appropriate. The exercise by citizens of legal rights also brings with it responsibilities – and access to information rights should not be abused to cause distress or a means of harassment. Equally, the ‘vexatious’ designation is not an excuse to save public officials embarrassment from poor decisions or inappropriate spending of taxpayers’ money. This will not require legislation.

Greater transparency on pay and perks of senior staff

The Commission recognises the advances that have been made to increase transparency about senior executives’ pay and benefits. Further steps will be taken to ensure this transparency is delivered across the whole public sector. The default position should be that such information from all public bodies is published; that the public should not have to resort to making Freedom of Information requests to obtain it, and data protection rules should not be used as an excuse to hide the taxpayer-funded payments to such senior public sector executives. We will now consider what additional steps should be taken to address any gaps in published information, and in particular in relation to expenses and benefits in kind as recommended, including more broadly than at present.

The government will carefully consider the Commission’s other recommendations.

The government has already demonstrated our commitment to openness through the publication of around 23,000 datasets on data.gov.uk. We are proud of the recognition we have received as the world’s leading country on open data through the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer. Our next Open Government Partnership national action plan, to be published later this year, will set stretching new commitments to take UK transparency further.

A copy of the Commission’s report is being placed in the libraries of both Houses, and will be published online on GOV.UK.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, on 25 February 2016.

It’s good to be in Newport.

Though I have to say I’m glad I’m not visiting Wales in a few weeks’ time. If the Rugby World Cup was anything to go by it might be quite painful for an Englishman to visit Wales after 12 March.

The rugby team’s obviously one centre of Welsh excellence. But later today I’ll be visiting several other local innovation centres, and I’ve already been hugely impressed by what you’ve shown me here at the ONS, which has underlined your commitment to technological modernisation and the honing of talent.

Seventy-five years ago, Winston Churchill created the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to improve on the coherence and availability of national statistics.

Plenty has changed since 1941 – not just the year the CSO was brought into this world, but also the first functional British jet, tupperware, velcro and, of course, the slinky.

But the two challenges Churchill was trying to tackle – coherence and openness – remain the same, even as the world has become more complex and diverse.

As technology marches on, we have unparalleled opportunities to use data to transform the services we provide and improve how the country is run. It’s more essential today than ever before that government is built on a foundation of high-quality, comprehensive and coherent statistics.

It’s said that 90% of all the data ever produced in history was generated in the past 2 years. The different kinds of data are also multiplying, from purchasing transactions to sensors, the Internet of Things and social networking sites.

New open data sets of unprecedented scale and variety are springing up, often in real time. This presents us in government with an opportunity like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

It’s a revolution we need to grasp with both hands. That means 3 things – it means recognising the potential of the rich national resource that data presents, it means being curious about new ideas and ways of doing absolutely everything, and it means opening ourselves up to the public and towards each other across government. There is massive potential in data, we need the curiosity and openness. Let us take these 3 in turn.

In the public and private sector, data is fuelling improvements unimaginable a few short years ago. It’s transforming how we travel and shop, the way we go out and the way we interact with each other.

And it’s changing how we deliver government.

We can deliver services that are cheaper, faster, more accessible and more secure. Services that respond with targeted solutions to specific problems. Services driven not by Whitehall but by the needs of citizens.

The potential of data as a national asset

To do this we must recognise the raw potential of the data at our fingertips.

Newport has long been a world-leading centre of industry – it was a crucial coal port and a focal point for the South Wales Valleys throughout the industrial era.

200 years ago this city was a hotbed of the industrial revolution. It is no stranger to leading industry, to innovation and to the tide of technological change.

Today we live in an entirely different world. Today, instead of coal, data is the most valuable raw material of our age. The way I see it, statistics are its refined product, and this is the refinery.

And to fulfil the potential of the ONS in the 21st century we still need to be the best and the most imaginative country in the world when it comes to using our resources.

We’re in the foothills of a data revolution. Data is no longer just a record of something that happened. It’s a mineable commodity from which we can extract value. It’s the unseen infrastructure of the digital economy, as important as any road or railway.

It’s not just the ONS. In South Wales we have a big data cluster: DVLA, Companies House, ONS and the IPO.

So there is increasing potential for a South Wales big data cluster and build the ecosystem-public, private and academic that can deliver the capability we need.

The ONS’ role in harnessing this resource

To harness our data resources, statistics will be crucial. Statistics are taking on ever greater importance in a world underpinned by increasingly evidence-based decisions. And that goes far beyond working out the odds at Cheltenham.

The ONS is crucial in the production of the statistics government relies on to make good policy, and its statistics are held in high regard throughout government, business and the wider public.

The 2021 census is a valuable opportunity to re-assert that reputation and consolidate our data resources.

When the first census of population took place back in 1801, the population of England and Wales was given as 9 million.

Our next census will be the largest peacetime operation ever undertaken in the UK. It will be digital-by-default, and we are aiming for the highest online response target of any census in the world, at 75%.

In the census each decade and the work that you do in Newport and Titchfield each year, you take raw data and turn it into life-changing improvements, everywhere from the classroom to the hospital bed. In doing so you change lives up and down the country.

So my point is the potential of technology. My second is about our response: curiosity. It’s crucial that we engage with curiosity towards change.

You’re pioneering the data science agenda, leading analytical professions in building the right infrastructure and developing the specialist skills we need to make the most of the data revolution.

Through the recently initiated Data Science Learning Academy, you’re spreading that leadership.

And you’re pushing the agenda across government through programmes like the Data Science Accelerator.

You’re expanding your horizons beyond government. The Big Data Team’s efforts on web scraping show how we can harness alternative data sources – in this case real-time supermarket data – to deliver more accurate, cost-effective outputs.

The same spirit of curiosity is at the heart of your innovation lab, which uses state-of-the-art technology to find new data sources and techniques. And it’s why I’ve asked the Open Data Institute to help us connect with the start-ups leading the data field.

Next I’m visiting the Alacrity Foundation. The ONS’ partnership with this unique organisation is a great example of how we can partner with outside bodies to nurture the brightest and best young talent.

To succeed and thrive in this new world, where knowledge is so dispersed, we need to be as curious as possible and embrace not just our own ideas, but also those at the cutting edge of the data revolution. And I urge you to be part of that revolution.

Openness

That brings me to my third point. I want the spirit of curiosity you’re showing here to be embedded in everything government is doing. The best ideas can come from absolutely anywhere. And that’s why we need to open ourselves up to ideas like never before.

The opportunities for innovation are a function of how much raw information is out there, and how many people can access and harness that information.

I’m delighted to see you continuing to open up your website, taking in huge levels of feedback and making your gateway to the public more agile, in a more cost-efficient way. I’m thrilled to see the new website go live.

It’s part of our radical open data policy: we’ve now published 23,000 datasets, covering £200 billion of public spending.

And part of being open is being open about the challenges we face. The ONS’ work is going to become even more crucial in the coming years. So it’s imperative that we keep up with how the world is changing.

Yes, the digital world is a maelstrom right now, but if we work together we can do more than just keep our heads above water – we can ride the waves to unimaginable places.

Yes, under John Pullinger’s impressive leadership the team will have to be adaptable in its size, shape, and skill-set.

But I want to underline this message you’ve heard before. Newport is Britain’s home of economic statistics, and that is not a resource we are going to squander. The ONS will stay in Newport.

And more than that, we’re going to invest to build our long-term capacity here, working with others in the region to create a hub and a centre of excellence for data handling and economic analysis. We’re going to double-down on Newport.

Of course, the digital world means roles will change, and some old ways of doing things will cease to exist. But we’re committed to working with you in that transition.

Through the Learning Academy and other initiatives, everyone will have the chance to gain new skills and continue to make a massively valuable contribution.

Change is a challenge, but also an opportunity – an opportunity for all of us to gain new skills, and for you to re-assert the crucial contribution the ONS makes to our country.

Your programme of change and Charlie Bean’s review will give the ONS a foundation to plan for the future, and to stay ahead of the curve of digital change with a strong, positive vision.

As the report highlights, we need an ONS that is less reactive and more proactive; more curious, open and self-critical.

These are just some of the challenges you’ll face in the years ahead, but I’m confident through the changes you’re making you’ll be more than capable of overcoming them.

Cabinet Office support and reform package

We are here to support you as we work together to reform government and unleash human ingenuity at all levels of the public sector.

Finally let me set out some of the most important projects this change will feed into. One big step we must take across government is to build single, canonical data registers kept up-to-date by one responsible authority and used across government. We don’t need 7 lists of countries of the world. We need 1, and it probably should be maintained by the Foreign Office.

We are also working together on how we share data within government. We’ll do this while maintaining the appropriate safeguards, but the prize is extremely valuable – more efficient and high-quality statistics, and huge potential for improvements to public services.

We will shortly bring forward proposals to improve the legal framework around research and statistics, tackling fraud and debt, and improving public services.

We’ve consulted widely over 2 years of collaboration, to build modern rules to govern the use of data in public services.

We want to give public authorities much greater clarity about what data can be shared, cutting delays so research with economic and social benefits can be conducted in a timely fashion.

We will put in place specific safeguards to ensure any information that could be used to identify individuals is protected, enhancing privacy.

These changes to legislation will not only ensure you have the tools to produce world-class statistics, they will let government feed the most up-to-date and relevant data into policy decisions, helping us deliver reforms from the Troubled Families programme to better targeted fuel poverty payments. They will better equip us to tackle fraud and debt.

Through them we can enhance social mobility, crime prevention and improve services for the citizens we serve.

Conclusion

So, these are times of change. We can – and must – tap into that same spirit in the data revolution. That’s what it will take for us to turn our rich data assets into world-leading innovation.

If we do this right the prizes are huge, and will change the very fabric of how the country is run.

Let us tackle these challenges head on and turn them into opportunities. You’ve already shown you’re willing and able to do this. We are backing you to deliver. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, in Israel on 16 February 2016.

Thank you for being here today and for the warm welcome we have received.

I’d like to begin by thanking Herzog, Fox and Neeman for hosting us today, and the Israeli National Cyber Bureau and UK Israel Tech Hub for organising the workshop.

I am full of admiration for what can only be described as the modern transformation of Israel.

David Ben Gurion wanted to see the Negev bloom. And the flourishing cyber ecosystem in Beer Sheva must be a fulfilment of his dreams.

You have transformed an arid desert into a Silicon Valley and brought Israeli companies, academia, public authorities, venture capitalists, and multinationals together to produce a fertile breeding ground of ideas and enterprise.

And it is not just Beer Sheva. Israel’s cyber ecosystem is thriving in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth and beyond.

It is an amazing and brilliant fact that Israel has the highest density of cyber and digital start-ups per capita in the world. We are very jealous of this fact. So I thought I’d do something about it, and come and learn from this start-up nation; from the Israeli spirit of innovation and mission.

I am delighted to lead a fantastic group of businesses representing the best of British industry and academia.

I hope we find businesses on both sides with an opportunity to showcase their products, discover areas of mutual interest and identify opportunities for partnership. And I hope to see concrete outcomes flowing from the discussions. We want to boost our trade, encourage even more Israeli investment in the UK and oppose those calling for boycotts.

The problem

So what is the challenge we face? New technologies, including digital technologies, give the world and its citizens opportunities like never before. This connection has helped more people escape poverty around the world, at a pace never seen. Yet this new opportunity brings new threats.

We are here today as cyber security is increasingly important. To our citizens, to our businesses, to our infrastructure, and to government itself. In the UK, our mission to create better digital public services for citizens is wholly dependent on the ability to protect our networks, our users and our data.

As the minister responsible for both digital government and cyber security in the UK government, it is my duty to drive progress on both of these interdependent issues.

Part of that means supporting the cyber security sector, helping companies innovate and learn from the best. And that is the theme of the workshop today. Part means better protection of government itself, and I’ll touch on that later.

As you will know, this is increasingly difficult because the volume and complexity of cyber attacks is increasing, both in scale and complexity.

Cybercrime, espionage, or attacks on critical infrastructure, from both state and non-state actors are increasing. The average cost of the most severe online security breaches for bigger companies now starts at almost £1.5 million. The number of significant attacks has doubled in the UK in the last year alone.

What we are doing

And cyber security is a shared responsibility. It requires the engagement of the whole of society. When it comes to protecting our critical national infrastructure, the importance of partnership between government and industry is particularly important.

You lead the world in making this partnership effective, and I want to learn how. You lead in the world in bringing government expertise and private enterprise together and we want to know how. In the UK we are establishing a National Cyber Centre to provide business and the government with a single point of contact and source of advice on how to manage cyber security risk.

The new Centre will make it easier for government and industry to share information on cyber threats to better protect the UK. And it will give us a new platform to handle incidents in real time, ensuring a faster and more effective response to major attacks. It will be critical in joining the secret and public-facing worlds together.

In the first instance this is to protect UK Crucial National Infrastructure (CNI). In the UK, where much of our CNI is owned and operated by the private sector, companies are responsible for ensuring privately-operated CNI is cyber secure.

New proposals

We need to get the design right. And we want to do more. In November we announced that the UK government will invest £1.9 billion over the next 5 years in cyber security. This means we’re nearly doubling our current investment to make the UK one of the safest places to do business online.

More widely, we are strengthening law enforcement capabilities to ensure that cyber criminals can’t escape justice.

We are boosting skills, sponsoring students and rolling out a major programme for the talented teenagers, involving after-school sessions with expert mentors, challenging projects, and summer schools. A number of academic initiatives in the UK are based on Israeli models of identifying and nurturing young cyber talent.

But cyber isn’t just about government alone.

The UK’s cyber security sector already contributes over £17 billion to the economy. Our ambition is for the UK to develop an innovative and truly world-class cyber security sector that will protect our national security.

We want to create a cyber ecosystem in which cyber start-ups proliferate, get the investment and support they need to win business around the world, to provide a pipeline of innovation that channels ideas between the private sector, government and academia.

We will establish cyber innovation centres to support early-stage companies to commercialise their products. I look to the Israeli model as an exemplary precedent.

And we are setting up a £165 million cyber and defence fund to invest in the next generation of cyber-security companies.

To get this right, international collaboration is crucial.

As a fellow member of the D5, which brings together the 5 leading digital governments in the world, we have been working closely with you to help reform government technology.

British/Israeli collaboration in technology and innovation has facilitated a multitude of business partnerships in areas such as fintech, cleantech, digital health and more.

I want to see this partnership strengthened. So I can announce today that we have launched a new academic engagement between the UK and Israel in the emerging area of cyber-physical security – an area vital to the safety and security of our economies and our infrastructure.

Israeli experts will engage in joint research with UK academics in cyber-security. We will launch a competition to find the best ideas and people to work together to develop research focussed on what is another new frontier: protecting our cyber physical systems: like protecting industrial control systems, the internet of things and driverless cars.

I can also announce that our leading cyber security bodies, CERT-UK and CERT-IL will strengthen their engagement and provide greater situational awareness through sharing incident information, malware analysis, methodologies, policies and best practice.

It is my hope and intention that we can build on what we have done in the past by identifying and developing opportunities for collaboration amongst our two nations.

For perhaps no two countries know more, in times both historic and present, of the need to fight for our security, to keep our people safe and free. While very real physical battles persist, the new frontier in that fight is the cyber war.

Together, we must ensure that cyberspace is resilient to malicious attacks, and remains open and free for the innovation and progress that is the embodiment of the human spirit. Our task is no less than that.

So, together, let us make it happen.

Thank you very much.

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, on 3 February 2016.

Good morning, and thank you all for coming.

Nearly a thousand years ago we made history in this country when William the Conqueror sent officials all over England to survey for the first time who owned how much land, property and livestock and what it was worth.

I’ve seen the Doomsday Book myself. And the logic of what he did then still holds more than a millennium later. The principle still stands, that you can only manage what you can measure. Though he may not be flattered to hear me say this, in many ways, William the Conqueror was the forefather of the modern surveyor.

But this is about more than just bricks and mortar – it’s about making sure we’re equipped with the environments and technology our people need to deliver excellent front line services. If we’re going to achieve this we need to find new ways to collaborate, new ways to make our estate work for us, and a new, more commercial mindset.

And William the Conqueror had it easy – he managed what you might call a minimalist estate and built a few castles. We want to boost jobs and growth, boost the housing supply, all the while keeping tax low.

But the opportunity is huge. We can not only make huge savings, but also make big improvements. We want more bang for our bricks. To do this we’re going to have to make some big changes, spearheaded by the efforts of the Cabinet Office’s brilliant Government Property Unit.

It will involve a wholesale change of culture within government, focusing on 3 things: collaboration, a commercial mindset, and putting our estate to work for us as a country.

Collaboration

First let’s talk about collaboration. Today we’re presenting the progress we’ve made in making the central estate more modern and effective. The State of the Estate report we launch today shows that last year we saved over £840 million from selling empty buildings and exiting expensive rentals – money we can spend instead on front line services like health and police. Since 2010 we’ve exited 2.4million square metres of surplus property – an area larger than Monaco.

We’re making the central estate leaner and smarter, with plans to release £5 billion in property over this Parliament, including unused airfields and barracks, surplus prisons and long-abandoned labs on which we can build the homes of the future. The average space per person in a government office building is now just 10.4 square metres – a 9% reduction in a single year. And we have an even more ambitious target to bring that down to just 8 square metres by March 2018.

The government estate is under the microscope like never before. And I don’t think any department should be given special privileges when it comes to scrutiny – especially when they’re responsible for thousands of square kilometres of land.

That’s why I can announce today that for the first time, we will be extending our reporting to include the vast Ministry of Defence estate, with the normal cross-government security considerations, making sure the same rigorous scrutiny is applied across the board and supporting the defence services in reaching their target of disposing of £1 billion of property and land over the next 5 years.

And we’ll be asking local authorities to report on the utilisation of their assets in the same way, and both central and local government will have to publish details of their surplus assets when these have been sitting unused for more than 2 years – or 6 months in the case of housing.

At a time when budgets are being squeezed more than ever, none of us can afford to hide empty rooms behind closed doors. We all need to pitch in to make our estate leaner and smarter, and to make our assets an opportunity, not a burden.

We’ve already shown what we can do when central and local government work together. Since 2013 our One Public Estate programme has supported 32 of the largest land and property owning councils in England in boosting growth and designing more integrated services by collaborating on property. Over 5 years, in partnership with the Local Government Association, we’re set to create 20,000 jobs, 9,000 homes, raise £129 million in capital receipts and save £77 million on running costs through these existing partnerships.

Like Place Partnership in the West Midlands, where 6 councils, police and fire authorities have grouped together to create the first property company of its kind. By pooling 1,000 buildings across 4 counties, they will save £110 million, as well as boosting economic growth and unlocking land that can be used for housing.

With a small investment then we can unlock so much value by working together. But this programme can deliver even more – and we announced a £31 million funding boost in December that will allow us to triple the number of partnerships benefiting from One Public Estate. We want to extend the programme to cover all local authorities in England over the course of this Parliament.

We are boosting One Public Estate. And to help local authorities more, we’ll introduce a new priority purchaser status for councils wishing to buy central government land, where there is a clear case for doing so. Giving planning permission is a transfer of value. So let’s keep the value for the taxpayer as we release this land.

We all have to pull our weight. And to build an estate that works for us and is fit to deliver excellent public services that meet today’s demands, we need to take every opportunity to harness ingenuity, be dynamic and be open to constant improvement. I want us all to be part of this effort regardless of your sector or background, striving to make our country better as a common purpose.

And we’re not ducking our own responsibilities in central government – through our Right to Contest and Government Property Finder website we’re inviting you all to challenge us. We’re not hiding away in our ivory towers and vanity buildings, you’re the experts and we want to hear from you – if there’s a site or a property you think is underused or surplus to requirements, we want you to tell us. If someone is blocking it, I want to know.

Putting our estate to work

We want departments to work closer together, but this isn’t just about reducing space – it’s about creating workspaces and an environment that facilitates discussion, collaboration and the delivery of excellent front line services.

So through our government hubs, we’ll provide the Civil Service with more cost-effective and higher quality workplaces, and reduce our 800 office buildings to less than 200 by 2023, saving £2 billion over 10 years. In central London, where some of our most expensive buildings are located, we’ve already slimmed down the estate from 181 properties in 2010 to 54 now. We want to take this figure down even further to fewer than 20 efficient, fit for purpose buildings by 2025, supported by the latest in smart working technology.

We’re going to be looking all over the country for strategic sites where we can build these hubs – If you think you’ve got a site that makes the grade, at a price we’ll find attractive, now’s the time to let us know about it.

This programme will enable departments to break down silos and boost productivity, and attract and retain the best talent, all while boosting regeneration and economic growth by freeing up unneeded land throughout the country so others can put it to use for homes and jobs.

I make no apology for putting technology at the heart of this reform through our smart working programme – The Way We Work. We’re right at the start of a revolution in the way people connect to one another. We can use new technology to do the old things for less money, sure. But we must also use it to completely redesign how we serve citizens, delivering faster, more accessible and more secure services. This agenda isn’t just about property, it’s about changing the whole way our people do their jobs.

We’ll keep the historic core estate, but we’ve got no intention of keeping gems as the exclusive domains of civil servants. Take Blythe House in West Kensington – itself made famous in espionage circles as the MI6 headquarters in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. By moving out we can release a fabulous site in prime London, with great potential for much needed housing, and open up the collections of the Victoria & Albert, Science and British Museums to the public once more.

Or Admiralty Arch, no longer home to the presence of admirals, but to hotel guests from around the world. You’ll recognise it from the films Children of Men and Howard’s End – leasing it out has raised £60 million for the taxpayer and opened up a historic landmark to be brushed up and reopened to the public. We’re putting the crown jewels of public property on public display so that the public they belong to can enjoy them.

It’s all part of our drive to make our estate work for us. Henry VIII is said to have rented out part of the modern-day Cabinet Office, now used for my private office, for use as tennis courts. We might not have an awful lot in common, but this is one area where we see eye-to-eye.

Creating a commercial mindset

So that’s how we want to collaborate more with our public and private sector partners, and how we plan to get the best possible value out of the estate. But we also need to up our game and be more commercial about our approach to property if we’re going to build an estate that’s right for the 21st century.

To this end, we announced in the latest Autumn Statement that in 2017 we’ll be setting up a new central body to take ownership of all relevant government land and property. Not only will this new property model support departments’ operational and business needs, but it’ll allow us to take a more commercial, cross-government approach to managing our portfolio. It will incentivise departments to be as efficient as possible, and help us to see all the opportunities for alternative use and extracting value for taxpayers.

We want to change the mindset from seeing property as an asset to seeing space as a running cost. And with this birds-eye view of the whole government estate we’ll be able to do even more to identify surplus sites, boost economic growth and release land for housing. We’ll also be drawing on the best and brightest from the public and private spheres – as a fine example of this we’re delighted that Liz Peace has agreed to be Shadow Chair of the new organisation.

This is an agenda with huge potential. But we can’t do this alone. We can only lay out a blueprint for the future; to achieve our goals we need to be collaborating with all of you sitting here today.

Times are moving forward. Gone are the days of William the Conqueror, and we’re doing away with departmental fiefdoms operating only within their silos. You can already notice the difference walking through government buildings and seeing colleagues from different departments working together. We do all this, in service of our country. Through collaboration, a commercial mindset and a cost-effective estate, we can achieve so much more.