3.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 3.2 Although DSIT does not have statutory powers to mandate board‑level appointments across departments and ALBs, it plays a central role in setting expectations and driving collective action on digital leadership. DSIT acknowledges ongoing digital skills gaps across the public sector and is actively using its leadership of the digital and data profession to strengthen accountability, transparency and workforce capability across government. 3.3 To strengthen leadership and invest in talent, the roadmap for modern digital government set an expectation that central and local government will have digital leaders on executive committees and boards by 2026. Departments are increasingly doing this, for 42 example Home Office and Department for Education recently made the decision to have board-level digital leaders. 3.4 DSIT is currently in the process of implementing departmental reporting on whether departments and ALBs have digital leaders on boards and digitally skilled Non-Executive Directors. This information will be requested through DSIT’s next quarterly data commission. DSIT will then work with departments and relevant ALBs that do not have digitally skilled board directors and Non-Executive Directors to identify suitable candidates. 3.5 Further action to attract, retain, and develop digital and data talent is being taken through the refinement of the Government Digital and Data Pay Framework and Capability Framework. 3.6 To support long-term workforce planning, talent pipelines are being developed and cross-sector skills exchange encouraged through initiatives such as TechTrack, Fast Stream, the AI Accelerators, succession plans, Returnship Programme and the Digital Secondments Programme.