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Former Cameron aide plotting £50m govtech fund, say reports

One of David Cameron’s key aides during the EU referendum is reportedly plotting a new multi-million pound tech fund aimed at getting technological innovations into the public sector.

Dan Gorski, who quit his role following June’s Brexit vote, is currently trying to drum up support for the fundraise with top tech figures including Eileen Burbidge and Local Globe heads Robin and Saul Klein rumoured to be supporters.

According to Sky News sources, while Gorski’s plans are at an early stage the venture has the potential to raise tens of millions of pounds, with a figure of around £50m mooted.

An unnamed source said it was ‘very early days’ for the new fund and mentioned the former aide’s ‘excellent contacts’ in the sector, which are likely to be key to its success.

The potential for technology to rejuvenate public services and bring about significant cost savings has been widely touted in Whitehall, with FinTech and edtech innovations highlighted as two key areas that could introduce significant efficiency savings to the way government operates.

A Govtech report released by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in September found that almost 250m government transactions still occur offline each year, at a cost of £14.70 per hour to the taxpayer.

This is despite an ever-increasing demand amongst the UK population for more government services to be digitised, as technology changes expectations about how people go about their daily lives.

The report said: “In a connected world, how the citizen wants to deal with government is changing driven by the possibilities opened up by new technology.”

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