HC Deb 21 February 1990 vol 167 cc791-2W
Mr. Knowles

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has for the future structure of his Department.

Mr. Ridley

The organisation of DTI was changed in 1988 at the time of the White Paper "DTI—the department for Enterprise" (Cm 278). One of the main changes then was the replacement of "industry" divisions by "market" divisions, organised by sector and covering a wide range of activities for each sector including collaborative projects, technology transfer, standards, market information, international trade issues and the promotion and presentation of policies for which other DTI divisions were responsible, such as the single market, deregulation and business/education links. My predecessor as Secretary of State decided last year that these organisational arrangements should be reviewed; the review has now been completed and I have decided to make some modifications to this part of DTI's organisation.

There are key priorities spanning all industrial sectors, on which the industrial side of my Department needs to concentrate. They include policies and programmes for collaborative research projects, technology transfer and standards; and there are other important issues for my Department, such as the response of business to environmental issues. I intend to bring together DTI expertise to provide a more concentrated focus on these long-term issues.

The present activities of "market" divisions will be better managed by a different structure of divisions each concentrating on a set of policies or programmes; expertise will then be focused on information technology, on manufacturing technology, on the environment and business, and on market assessment. Divisions with policy responsibilities for matters such as international trade, the single market, business/education links and deregulation will be responsible for communicating with business direct, rather than through the "market" divisions as at present. The focus of responsibility, and lines of communication, will both be clearer and more direct.

Where there are continuing Government responsibilities towards specific industrial sectors—such as aerospace, shipbuilding, vehicles, industrial materials and steel—these responsibilities will be handled, so long as they are required, by task forces which focus on the sectors in question. The task force approach will also provide a capability for responding flexibly to specific but temporary issues affecting industry and commerce.

For other sectors of the Department's work, I intend to continue my predecessor's policy of setting up entities such as the Patent Office, Companies House, the Insolvency Service and the research establishments as Next Steps agencies. Good progress is being made.

As I said in my letter to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry on 26 January, I intend no changes in the arrangements for the regulatory divisions of the DTI—other than to make sure they continue to be adequately staffed to pursue their important functions. More widely, I am continuing to study how best industry and commerce should be provided with other DTI services.

The changes in the organisation of the market divisions will be implemented over the next few months. This process will lead to a reduction in the number of posts in the Department, of probably about 100 to 150 posts. I do not expect there to be any redundancies.