Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Tech Nation.

The Department's assessment of Tech Nation is focused on the effectiveness of activities that were paid for with government grant funding, rather than on the organisation as a whole. To this end, robust monitoring and evaluation processes were in place throughout the grant-funded period to ensure taxpayers’ money was spent properly and responsibly.

In addition to monthly and quarterly monitoring, we undertook independent evaluations of our grant to Tech Nation, as per Government requirements. The most recent published assessment of Tech Nation’s activities funded by the Department was published in October 2020.

In November 2022, we commissioned an economic consultancy to undertake a second independent evaluation of our grant funding to Tech Nation. This evaluation will cover the 20/21-22/23 funding period and will assess the impact of the grant, in addition to capturing lessons learned from the Tech Nation programmes. The report's findings will be published in due course.

We thank Tech Nation for their valuable work over the years and their lasting impact on the UK tech sector.