Denham denies Dius failed to do its job

2 Jul 09
The Cabinet minister who led the short-lived Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills has denied that it failed in its mission
By Vivienne Russell

July 2, 2009

The Cabinet minister who led the short-lived Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills has denied that it failed in its mission.

John Denham took charge of Dius from its creation in 2007 to its merger into an enlarged business department last month.

He told Public Finance that this reflected Dius’s evolution from an education-focused department to an economic one. Bringing together responsibility for skills with research and innovation policy transformed the role of the department within Whitehall, Denham said.

‘The issue was bound to arise sooner or later [that] if you’ve got an economic department [then] what’s the relationship with the other main economic department, which was [the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform],’ he told PF.

‘So the decision was taken to bring the two together, but I would say it was a significant sign of how much we’d changed the perception of that work from an education focus to an economic focus over time.’

In his new role as communities and local government secretary, Denham has urged local authorities involved in large-scale procurements to think about the wider training and economic opportunities the process can secure.

‘I have brought to this job a sense [that] this is one of the big spending areas of government, and the way in which people can do their procurement can have a massive economic impact over and above the first issue, which is the quality of services you give to local people,’ he said.

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