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The Loan Charge scandal explained: Everything you need to know

Tens of thousands of IT contractors have been hit with life-changing tax bills relating to projects they worked on over a decade ago after enrolling in remuneration schemes that saw them paid for the work they did in the form of non-taxable loans, rather than a conventional salary.

These loan-based remuneration schemes were typically run by offshore employee benefits trusts (EBTs), and were often erroneously marketed as being an HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)-compliant means for contractors to bolster their take-home pay, with contractors often advised to join such schemes by respected tax advisers. 

In some instances, contractors were told they would be unable to work for certain organisations unless they agreed to be paid in loans, too.

In recent years, however, scheme participants have found themselves in HMRC’s crosshairs, thanks to the introduction of a piece of retroactive legislation – known as the Loan Charge – that is designed to help the government recoup the tax it claims participants avoided paying between December 2010 and April 2019.

The individuals now being chased for backdated tax payments by HMRC claim they are the victims of mis-selling, given how these schemes were previously marketed to them as safe and compliant to use, and the situation has seen more than 200 MPs from various parties come out in support of their plight.

In the years since the policy was introduced, and details of the toll it is taking on those in its scope have started to emerge, there have been a series of legal actions attempted to overturn the policy.

There have also been calls from MPs for HMRC to stop doggedly pursuing the individuals involved, and start taking punitive measures against the employers, agencies and promotors who advised people to join these schemes in the first place.

At the time of writing, though, the policy remains in place, and there are few signs from the government that it has any intention of revising its contents or how it works.

The situation has drawn parallels with the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, given the people caught in scope of the Loan Charge are widely considered to be victims of mis-selling by accountants and trusted tax advisors who marketed these loan-based remuneration schemes as HMRC-approved.

Sammy Wilson, an MP representing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), drew comparisons between the victims of the Post Office scandal and the individuals affected by the Loan Charge during a January 2024 Business Committee Back Bench debate in the House of Commons.

As was the case with the Post Office scandal victims, the Loan Charge story similarly involves a group of people who were “acting in good faith being prosecuted and pursued” when the people who “absolutely knew what they were doing are getting away scot-free”, said Wilson.

In the case of the Loan Charge, the parties responsible for marketing and promoting these loan-based remuneration schemes are not being pursued in the same way as the individuals who participated in them, which he described as wrong.

“HMRC are going after those who they regard as easy targets,” said Wilson. “The promoters of these schemes – not one penny [has been demanded from them].

“Despite the promoters [making] hundreds of millions of pounds of these schemes, [they] have mis-sold the schemes, [and] have disappeared when there is any attempt to get after them,” he added. “Those promoters are not being pursued … and yet individuals are being harassed – harassed to the point that many of them have taken their own lives.”

What is the Loan Charge policy and why was it introduced?

The Loan Charge policy was introduced as part of an ongoing anti-tax avoidance campaign by HMRC, designed to counter the surge in the number of loan-based remuneration schemes in operation.

The policy was put forward by HM Treasury during the 2017 Budget as means of recouping billions of pounds in unpaid taxes the UK government claimed contractors avoided paying by opting to be paid in the form of non-taxable loans rather than receive a conventional salary.

The policy terms initially stated that any contractor who participated in a loan-based remuneration scheme between 6 April 1999 and 5 April 2019 would be in-scope of the policy, and would be expected to pay back any and all tax they avoided while enrolled in these schemes.

The total amounts of unpaid tax HMRC said they owed are what is referred to as the “Loan Charge”.

An independent review of the policy, published in December 2019, concluded the timeframe the policy covers should be shortened by 11 years, so that only individuals who enrolled in schemes after 9 December 2010 would be included.

It is estimated this change resulted in around 10,000 people falling out of scope of the Loan Charge policy.

Why is the policy considered “controversial”?

Much of the controversy surrounding the Loan Charge relates to the retroactive nature of the policy, with critics often taking issue with the fact it effectively introduces a retrospective tax on something – in this case, a loan – that was previously technically considered to be non-taxable.

The timeframe the policy covers also means the final amounts of unpaid tax that individuals can end up owing can end up being life-changing, with many of those affected at risk of financial ruin or facing bankruptcy as a result.

There is also the fact that many of the individuals who participated in these schemes received assurances from trusted tax advisors and accountants that receiving payment for the work they did in this way was permissible and acceptable in the eyes of HMRC.

How much money does HMRC expect to make from the Loan Charge?

When the policy was first introduced, HMRC estimated that implementing the Loan Charge would allow it to recoup £3.2bn in previously unpaid tax over the course of five years, but that figure was later revised up to £3.4bn.  

However, the publication of the independent review into the policy, which resulted in several tweaks being made to how it works, is estimated to have reduced the policy’s overall total tax take by £620m.

How many people are affected by the Loan Charge policy?

HMRC suggests there are around 50,000 individuals affected by the Loan Charge policy, although volunteer-led non-profit the Loan Charge Action Group (LCAG) has previously told Computer Weekly it thinks the number of people affected is far, far higher.

Those affected include a disproportionate number of IT contractors, as well as NHS workers, public sector agency staff, teachers and individuals working in the oil and gas sector.

Why did people use loan-based disguised remuneration schemes?

While the concept of loan-based remuneration schemes pre-dates the onset of the IR35 regulations, the number of these schemes in operation markedly increased in the wake of HMRC introducing these revamped tax avoidance rules in 2000.

The IR35 regulations were introduced as part of a disguised employment push by the government that would see contractors having their engagements classified as being either inside or outside IR35 based on the kind of work they do and how it is carried out.

Contractors that are determined to be working inside IR35 are considered to be employees for tax purposes, meaning they are liable to pay the same employment taxes and national insurance contributions (NICs) as a salaried employee, but are not entitled to employment benefits such as paid sick leave or pension contributions. 

In many cases, contractors were offered the opportunity to side-step the IR35 regulations entirely by opting to close down their limited company and sign on to become the employee of an umbrella company instead.

Some of these umbrella companies operated in a non-compliant manner by promising contractors they could increase their take-home pay by agreeing to be paid in non-taxable loans issued by EBTs that were marketed as HMRC-compliant.

HMRC, however, has always maintained that it has never approved the use of a loan-based remuneration scheme, and has also been of the view that such schemes do not work.   

In addition to that, it has also been repeatedly claimed by many of those affected by the Loan Charge policy that they were unwittingly enrolled in these schemes by umbrella companies that promised them “too-good-to-be-true” amounts of take-home pay without disclosing they would be paid in loans.

What impact has the Loan Charge policy had on those affected?

While HMRC has repeatedly stated that no one in-scope of the Loan Charge will be forced to sell their main home to cover the amounts it claims they owe in unpaid tax, Computer Weekly has heard anecdotal reports from IT contractors who have done exactly that.

HMRC has previously stated that it has no intention to make the individuals in-scope of the Loan Charge policy bankrupt, and that insolvency will only be considered as a last resort if the person involved is actively avoiding paying what they owe or are at risk of accruing further debt.

Even so, members of the Loan Charge APPG have repeatedly spoken out about the toll the policy is taking on the health and well-being of those affected.

There have also been 10 suicides linked to the Loan Charge to-date, as confirmed by HMRC, in a letter signed by its CEO, Jim Harra, in January 2023.

The missive states that HMRC has had cause to refer itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct on 10 occasions “where a customer has sadly taken their life and had used a disguised remuneration scheme”. 

Do the people affected by the loan charge have to repay their loans?

This question is key to understanding the Loan Charge policy. Loans are typically not considered to be a form of taxable income, but – according to HMRC – the recipients of these loans should pay tax on them because they were never intended to be repaid.

Furthermore, many contractors who participated in these schemes were of the understanding they would never be asked to repay the loans they received.

But – as extensively documented by Computer Weekly – several attempts have been made in recent years by different parties to recall the loans contractors received, meaning – in addition to HMRC – they have also been asked to repay these loans in full, plus interest.

In instances such as this, HMRC has restated that any individual that repays a loan they received during the timeframe covered by Loan Charge policy will still need to repay the tax it claims they still owe.

This is an outcome few, if any, loan scheme participants have ever budgeted for, adding further pressure to their finances.   

How can the Loan Charge issue be resolved? 

Some individuals caught in the policy’s scope have sought settlements with HMRC to bring the matter to a close for them, although there are also anecdotal reports of people who went down this route and then received further payment demands from HMRC afterwards.

There have been numerous legal challenges attempted to overturn the policy, as well as requests made to HMRC to consider letting those unable to pay off the full amounts owed pay a reduced settlement figure, so the government tax collection agency gets some money rather than none.

MPs have also repeatedly called on the government to do more to tackle the people responsible for marketing these schemes, to prevent new schemes from emerging. There are further calls to also spread the tax burden on to the promoters, agencies and employers that encouraged individuals to join these schemes. 

During the Autumn Budget 2024, the government confirmed there would be a second independent review of the policy to bring the matter to a close for all those affected. 

This was on the back of representations made to Treasury Minister James Murray during a meeting facilitated by the APPG in August 2024, where various individuals in-scope of the policy outlined the toll the Loan Charge was taking on their health, well-being and their finances.

At the time of writing, HM Treasury is yet to confirm the scope of the review and who will be tasked with overseeing it. 

In the meantime, Computer Weekly has learned that HMRC is offering to pause the settlement activity of anyone caught by the Loan Charge until the review has concluded. 

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Denmark’s AI-powered welfare system fuels mass surveillance

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools used by the Danish welfare authority violate individual privacy, risk discrimination and breach the European Union’s (EU) AI Act’s regulations on social scoring systems, according to analysis from Amnesty International.

Udbetaling Danmark (UDK, or Payout Denmark) – established in 2012 to centralise the payment of various welfare benefits across five municipalities – uses AI-powered algorithms to flag individuals who are considered at the highest risk of committing social benefits fraud for further investigation. These were developed in partnership with ATP, Denmark’s largest pensions processing company, and various private multinational corporations.

The report details how UDK’s fraud control algorithms breach the human rights of social security benefits recipients, including their rights to privacy, equality and social security. It also concludes that the system creates a barrier to accessing social benefits for certain marginalised groups, including people with disabilities, low-income individuals and migrants.

“This mass surveillance has created a social benefits system that risks targeting, rather than supporting, the very people it was meant to protect,” said Hellen Mukiri-Smith, Amnesty International’s researcher on artificial intelligence and human rights.

“The way the Danish automated welfare system operates is eroding individual privacy and undermining human dignity. By deploying fraud control algorithms and traditional surveillance methods to identify social benefits fraud, the authorities are enabling and expanding digitised mass surveillance.”

Amnesty argues that UDK’s fraud detection system likely falls under the “social scoring” ban under the EU’s AI Act, which came into force on 1 August 2024.

The act defines AI social scoring systems as those that “evaluate or classify” individuals or groups based on social behaviour or personal traits, causing “detrimental or unfavourable treatment” of those people.

Mukiri-Smith said: “The information that Amnesty International has collected and analysed suggests that the system used by the UDK and ATP functions as a social scoring system under the new EU Artificial Intelligence law – and should therefore be banned.”

UDK and ATP provided Amnesty with redacted documentation on the design of certain algorithmic systems, and allegedly rejected Amnesty’s requests for a collaborative audit, refusing to provide full access to the code and data used in their algorithms.

The Danish authority also rejected Amnesty’s assessment that its fraud detection system likely falls under the AI Act’s social scoring ban, but did not offer an explanation for this reasoning.

In response to this, Amnesty has called on the European Commission to issue clear guidelines on which AI practices constitute a social scoring system in its AI Act guidance. The organisation has also requested that the Danish authorities stop using the system until it can be confirmed that it does not fall under this ban.

Mukiri-Smith added: “The Danish authorities must urgently implement a clear and legally binding ban on the use of data related to ‘foreign affiliation’ or proxy data in risk scoring for fraud control purposes. They must also ensure robust transparency and adequate oversight in the development and deployment of fraud control algorithms.”

Computer Weekly contacted UDK about the claims made by Amnesty International but received no response by the time of publication.

Violation of privacy

Alongside ATP, UDK uses a system of up to 60 algorithms to identify fraudulent social benefit applications and flag individuals for further investigation by Danish authorities.

To power these models, Danish authorities have enacted laws enabling the extensive collection and merging of personal data from public databases of millions of Danish residents. This includes information on residency status, citizenship, and other data that can also serve as proxies for a person’s race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Mukiri-Smith added: “This expansive surveillance machine is used to document and build a panoramic view of a person’s life that is often disconnected from reality. It tracks and monitors where a social benefit claimant lives, works, their travel history, health records, and even their ties to foreign countries.”

Individuals interviewed by Amnesty described the psychological impact of being subjected to surveillance by fraud investigators and case workers. Describing the feeling of being investigated for benefits fraud, Stig Langvad of Dansk Handicap Foundation told Amnesty that it is like “sitting at the end of a gun”.

UDK stated that its collection and merging of personal data to detect social benefits fraud is “legally grounded”.

Exacerbation of structural marginalisation

The report also reveals that the benefits fraud control system developed by UDK and ATP is built on inherently discriminatory structures in Denmark’s legal and social systems, which categorises people and communities based on difference.

According to the report, Danish law already creates a “hostile environment for migrants and people who have been granted refugee status”, with residency requirements for those seeking to claim benefits that disproportionately affect people from non-Western countries, with many refugees in Denmark, including Syria, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

The Really Single fraud control algorithm predicts a person’s family or relationship status to assess risk of benefit fraud in pensions and childcare schemes. One of the parameters employed by the algorithm includes “unusual” or “atypical” living patterns or family arrangements, but contains no clarity on what constitutes such situations, leaving room for dangerously arbitrary decision-making.

Mukiri-Smith added: “People in non-traditional living arrangements – such as those with disabilities who are married but live apart due to their disabilities; older people in relationships who live apart; or those living in a multi-generational household, a common arrangement in migrant communities – are all at risk of being targeted by the Really Single algorithm for further investigation into social benefits fraud.”

Gitte Nielsen, the chairperson of the social and labour market policy committee at Dansk Handicap Foundation, described the feeling of being constantly scrutinised and reassessed: “It is eating you up. A lot of our members … have depression because of this interrogation.”

UDK and ATP additionally use inputs related to “foreign affiliation” in their algorithmic models. For example, the Model Abroad algorithm identifies groups of beneficiaries deemed to have “medium and high-strength ties” to non-EEA countries and prioritises these groups for further investigation.

Amnesty’s research found that algorithms such as these discriminate against people based on factors such as national origin and migration status.

In a response to Amnesty, UDK stated that the use of “citizenship” as a parameter in their algorithms does not constitute processing of sensitive personal information.

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Adventures in AI at Tripadvisor

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19 November 2024

Adventures in AI at Tripadvisor

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In this week’s Computer Weekly, we find out how travel site Tripadvisor is embracing AI to offer new products and services to its users. Gartner says the chance of a successful digital project is like ‘flipping a coin’ – we went to its annual IT leadership symposium to ask why. And we examine what companies must do to comply with the EU’s new NIS2 cyber security rules. Read the issue now.

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Nationwide Building Society backs HPE GreenLake for hybrid cloud push

Nationwide Building Society is drawing on HPE’s private cloud capabilities to help deliver on the next phase of its multi-year hybrid cloud strategy.

The company, which has more than 17 million customers in the UK and employs 18,000 people, is in midst of a hybrid cloud-focused digital transformation project, geared towards improving the online experience for its customers.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, this work, which began in 2018, has seen the firm use public cloud technologies, such as those offered by Amazon Web Services, and embrace the use of DevOps-style software development methodologies within its teams.

The project has also seen Nationwide adopt different cloud technologies based on what is best for that particular type of data or workload, which is why the company is now adding the HPE Greenlake private cloud setup to its supplier mix too.

“Nationwide’s hybrid cloud strategy is vital to our ability to compete and means we can continue to meet the needs and expectations of our customers – HPE GreenLake cloud is a core component of our hybrid cloud strategy,” said Paul Walsh, director of infrastructure and service delivery at Nationwide.

“With them, we’re building a cloud platform that will further improve our resilience and agility, enabling us to provide even better levels of service and deliver new capabilities to our developers faster than ever before.”

Specifically, Nationwide will use HPE GreenLake management services to automate and orchestrate its infrastructure management workloads and deliver infrastructure-as-code, the company said.

“This [will] enable [Nationwide] to focus on innovation, value-add activities and gain better control over application builds and security,” said the company, in a statement. “Faster release cycles will accelerate the time to market, providing consistent customer experiences across all digital platforms.”

The HPE GreenLake cloud setup will also provide Nationwide with an overview of its energy consumption and emissions, so that it can take proactive steps to reduce its environmental footprint, the company added.

Matt Harris, senior vice-president and managing director for the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa at HPE, said the complexities of the deployment highlight why taking a public cloud-only approach would not work for a company like Nationwide.

“Nationwide’s modernisation journey showcases the effectiveness of HPE GreenLake cloud, with the storied institution transitioning from complex, legacy technology to a modern, future-proofed hybrid cloud operating model where a one-size-fits-all public cloud could never be the only answer,” said Harris.

Nationwide is not the only financial services company tapping into HPE GreenLake to deliver on its hybrid cloud strategy, as Barclays Bank also set out plans in September 2024 to ramp up its use of the technology for that purpose.

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Computer Weekly’s Women in UK Tech Rising Stars 2024

This year’s most influential woman in UK technology – Sheridan Ash, founder and co-CEO of Tech She Can – created the charity to bridge the accessibility gap that exists when it comes to female role models in the technology space.

While there are many high-profile women in tech, these role models are people to aspire to be, and many young girls feel they need women only one or two steps ahead of them in their careers to show them the path to the top.

Computer Weekly’s Rising Stars category was introduced in 2014 as a way to increase the number of women showcased as industry role models.

Each year, alongside the top 50 list, Computer Weekly asks its judges to suggest Rising Stars who are starting their journey towards a possible place in the top 50 in the future, and who represent the future of the tech sector.

This year’s Rising Stars are:

Alice Hendy, CEO and founder, R;pple; cyber culture manager, Deloitte

Hendy founded digital suicide prevention tool R;pple in 2020, designed to help people who are making online searches relating to self-harm or suicide.

She is CEO of the charity, which she does alongside her work as the cyber culture manager at Deloitte.

With an extensive background in cyber, Hendy is also a TEDx speaker, an ambassador for One Young World and a JAAQ creator, covering the topic of suicide prevention.

Sarah Underhill, HR director, technology and data (Group Chief Operating Office), Lloyds Banking Group

Underhill has spent her entire career at Lloyds Banking Group, since joining the firm as a graduate in 1999.

She has held several roles at Lloyds, and is currently HR director for technology and data, part of the firm’s Group Chief Operating Office, where she is responsible for developing its people strategies for technology.

She has previously sat on the board of now disbanded tech diversity collective the Tech Talent Charter.

Feryal Clark, Parliamentary under secretary of state for AI and digital government, DSIT

Clark has worked in the public sector for many years, most recently being appointed the parliamentary under-secretary of state for artificial intelligence (AI) and digital government at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Her responsibilities range across AI and digital, including AI regulation, transparency and ethics, as well as cyber security and digital identity, and public services.

Before her Parliamentary career, Clark’s focus was on medicine, having studied bioinformatics at the University of Exeter and worked in roles in diagnostic biochemistry and diagnostic virology.

Tania Duarte, founder, We and AI

Heavily focused on the use of AI, Duarte co-founded non-profit We and AI in 2020 to ensure AI is developed with everyone in mind, creating communities to ensure diverse teams of people are involved in the technology’s future development.

She is also the lead of Better Images of AI, a not-for-profit that offers a free library of images that better represent AI to reduce the use of stereotypical representations of AI such as “humanoid robots, glowing brains, outstretched robot hands, blue backgrounds and the Terminator”.

In 2020, she also became the founding editorial board member of the AI and Ethics Journal, published by Springer Nature.

Anushka Davis, head of talent, engagement and diversity, and head of learning and development, Softcat

Davis heads up talent, engagement and diversity, as well as learning and development, for IT infrastructure firm Softcat.

Her role involves looking after the development of all employees across the organisation, as well as developing the firm’s graduate and apprenticeship programmes.

She is also an advisory board member of community group Women of the Channel.

Nikita Thakrar, founder and CEO, Included VC

Thakrar founded and is CEO of Included VC, a venture capital fund dedicated to making sure diversity entrepreneurs gain the funding they need.

It’s not her first time working with entrepreneurs – previously she headed up innovation and entrepreneurship in Deep Science Ventures at Imperial College London.

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From beauty model to tech role model – this year’s most influential woman in UK tech

“My husband has to sew my buttons on – I still can’t sew,” confesses co-CEO of technology education charity Tech She Can, Sheridan Ash.

This year’s Computer Weekly most influential woman in UK technology has always had a sense of wanting to right the injustice inflicted on women by gender stereotyping.

“At school, the girls had to do sewing or needlework or typing, and the boys did metalwork and woodwork. So I went to the local newspaper. I set up a petition. I got other pupils to stand outside the school with placards. Anyway, I got it changed. Hence, I can’t sew or type, but I’m great at welding,” says Ash.

Computer Weekly attended the launch of the first Tech She Can research eight years ago, when it was still a part of Ash’s work at PwC.

Ash has since left the professional services firm to focus on the technology education charity full-time, but like many women in the tech sector, her journey has not been linear.

Ash left school at 16 with no qualifications, which she puts down, in part, to undiagnosed dyslexia. Not knowing what to do, she accepted a modelling job she was offered when window shopping with her mother in London.

While this sufficed for a while, in her early 20s, Ash needed a career change for various reasons. After getting help with her dyslexia, she returned to education to study psychological sciences, then worked in the pharmaceutical industry before returning to school again to gain a master’s in business administration.

Eventually, Ash was offered a job at PwC to implement the firm’s health and technology practice.

Pushing for equality

Ash has always been passionate about equality – hence wanting to weld at school – and in her role at PwC, she started to notice the diversity gap in the technology sector.

“What was going wrong? Why was it so predominantly male?” she found herself wondering at the time.

After the firm selected its first technology leader to sit on the board, the work Ash had done to collect data around diversity, both within PwC and the wider sector, began to pay off in a big way.

The Tech She Can team

She explains: “I worked directly for that technology leader. I wrote the whole technology and innovation strategy for the firm, and at the heart of that, I embedded the piece around diversity.”

It was when working with the board of PwC eight years ago that Ash was inspired to commission the first piece of research on diversity, which eventually evolved into the Tech She Can movement.

Ash says while there had been research at the time about the lack of women in the sector and the reasons for that, there was not enough around why younger girls were overlooking jobs in tech.

After asking thousands of young people between the ages of 18 and 24, Ash explains: “They said, ‘We know who Sheryl Sandberg is, and Ada Lovelace, but one’s been dead a long time and the other’s a COO’. What they were looking for is relatable role models, people [in roles] they could see a pathway to.”

The research also found girls were less likely than boys to have technology suggested to them as a career option by others in their lives, such as teachers, parents or career advisors.

Girls were also more likely to say they wanted a career that has a positive impact on society, but Ash speculates the digital native generations don’t see how technology can achieve that because it’s so embedded in their lives.

She explains: “They wanted to have a positive impact on themselves, the community, their family, the UK and the wider world, and they didn’t understand the relationship between technology and doing that.”

Recognising that no single person or organisation will be able to shift the dial alone, Tech She Can is focused on acting as a “bridge” between government, schools and industry.

“We’re quite good at bridging that demand and supply [gap], along with [addressing] what’s putting girls off, the perception issues and all of those things,” Ash claims. “Often, you don’t get [to hear] teachers’, schools’ and children’s voices.”

Changing perceptions

Tech She Can was launched as a charter with 18 partner organisations to collaborate on improving the pipeline of women going into technology roles. As part of this, it has become focused on helping educate children about tech careers.

A common barrier between young girls and tech careers is a lack of understanding about what a tech career involves, what roles are available, how to go about pursuing a tech career, and the kinds of people who work in the industry.

This goes hand in hand with a lack of visible and accessible role models, as young women are less likely to be drawn to a career if they don’t see anyone like them in such roles.

Photographer: Elyse Marks

“I want to persuade girls they have a role to play in making sure that the world isn’t just developed by a lot of white tech bros, that they could be part of making sure the world is a fit place for everybody, and that it is somewhere women are treated equally in creating that world”

Sheridan Ash, Tech She Can

Ash urges: “We’ve got to start changing these perceptions and addressing the inspiration and aspiration gaps very early on, and children’s understanding of what technology is and what roles and careers there are out there. Nobody seems to be doing that.”

Tech She Can regularly visits schools and provides online learning to prepare young people for technology careers, educating them about possible roles and how technology will play a role in their future careers. It also helps government and industry “connect” with schools with the aim of closing the technology skills and diversity gaps.

“We don’t teach the coding. We teach the inspiration, the aspiration, and show them how the technology they can use [translates into] careers and jobs.”

Last year, Ash left PwC to pursue Tech She Can full-time, launching the initiative as a charity in partnership with co-CEO Claire Thorne.

The programme has gone from strength to strength. It now has 200 member organisations, 800 registered “champions”, and has reached more than 130,000 children.

At a time when so many organisations are stepping back when it comes to implementing diversity and inclusion in their technology remit, how does Tech She Can make sure those involved are not using it as lip service?

“What we concentrate on is what we call our ‘strategic partners’, which are the people who fund us, and across all our partners we train champions to go into schools, we package up all our live lessons in a way that the champions can take them out and deliver them in person. In primary schools, they often do it to a whole assembly, and in secondary schools, it’s usually to individual classes.”

During these sessions, the champions explain technology concepts, how they apply in the real world and what tech jobs involve, which over time has changed the way children perceive technology, the subjects they choose to study and what careers they consider in the future.

Underpinning it all is data. For example, the organisation uses social mobility data to ensure it offers its services to schools that have the greatest need for it.

Being Wonder Woman

Wearing other hats, Ash is a non-executive director for several other organisations, leaning into her life-long need to help women achieve equality.

But she still has moments when she needs to perform a Wonder Woman-style power pose to amp herself up.

Portfolio images of Sheridan Ash as a teen beauty model

We often talk about technology role models, and in Ash’s childhood, she aspired to be Wonder Woman.

“She kicked the ass of the baddies,” she says. “She wanted to have a positive impact. She did good shit. And that felt right from a young age, whether I was conscious or not about what I wanted in life.”

There is plenty of research highlighting the importance of role models for young women, especially in the technology space. Ash is a role model herself.

Ash says she wants every young woman to know that not only is technology a “joyful” career, but it is going to be “one of the most important factors of shaping her world”.

She says: “I want to persuade girls they have a role to play in making sure that the world isn’t just developed by a lot of white tech bros, that they could be part of making sure the world is a fit place for everybody, and that it is somewhere women are treated equally in creating that world.”

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Computer Weekly announces the Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2024

Sheridan Ash, founder and co-CEO of Tech She Can, has become the 13th person to be named Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Woman in UK Tech.

Launched in 2012, the Computer Weekly list of the 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech started as a list of 25, expanding to 50 in 2015, and now seeing hundreds of nominations each year.

The list was originally created to showcase the amazing women in the technology industry, shining a light on the sector’s role models who may inspire the next generation of women in tech.

As well as the 2024 longlist of more than 700 nominated women, and our list of Rising Stars, there are also new entrants to our Hall of Fame, launched to acknowledge those who have made a lifetime contribution to the UK’s technology sector.

This year’s winner, Sheridan Ash, launched Tech She Can to teach girls and young women about technology careers and subjects to inspire them to choose this path in the future.

Until 2023, Ash led technology innovation at PwC UK, and is currently co-CEO and founder of the charity Tech She Can. She was a board member of the Institute of Coding for four years and, in 2020, received an MBE for services to young girls and women through technology.

Tech She Can is an award-winning charity with more than 240 member organisations, which together work with industry, government and schools to improve the ratio of women in technology roles. It provides initiatives and pathways into tech careers across all the different stages of girls’ and women’s lives.

At PwC, Ash led change in the technology workforce, pioneering initiatives that saw the percentage of women in tech more than double to reach 32%.

Timperley is a freelance consultant and co-founder of Tech North Advocates, a private sector-led collection of tech experts who champion the technology sector in the north of England.

In 2021, she co-founded advisory firm Growth Strategy Innovation, which helps to grow startup and scaleup organisations. She is now innovation director for Oxford Innovation, which helps organisations develop ecosystems for entrepreneurs and innovators, in turn boosting local areas.

Timperley was named a Computer Weekly Women in Tech Rising Star in 2017 when, until 2021, she was a board member of FutureEverything. She previously co-founded Enterprise Lab.

Turner founded Angel Academe, a pro-women and pro-diversity angel investment group focused on technology, and is currently CEO of the group.

Until 2023, Turner was also an advisory board member of tech recruiter Spinks, and in 2007 co-founded consultancy Turner Hopkins, which helps businesses create digital strategies.

Previously, Turner was an external board member and chair of the investment committee for venture capital fund the Low Carbon Innovation Fund and a board member of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade association for early-stage investment.

Hunter founded Coding Black Females in 2017 to help black female software developers meet each other and network. Alongside her work at Coding Black Females, Hunter is a software developer.

She is an advisory board industry representative in the University of Essex Online’s computing department, technical director at SAM Software Solutions, and technical director at full-stack and front-end training organisation Black CodHer Bootcamp.

Previously, Hunter was lead software engineer at Made Tech, and held roles such as senior software developer, lead Java developer, app developer and technical consultant at various firms. She was named a Computer Weekly Women in UK Tech Rising Star in 2020.

Before her time as an MP, Niblett had a long career in technology, having roles such as industry sales leader at DXC Technology and head of alliances, channel and ecosystem in EMEA at 1E.

Now, alongside her role as an MP, she’s founder of the Labour: Women in Tech group, which campaigns to reach equal gender opportunities in the technology industry. She’s also the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on FinTech and the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (PICTFOR), as well as the chair for the Interparliamentary Forum on Emerging Technologies and a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee.

An entrepreneur and co-founder, Brailsford joined Code First Girls as CEO in 2019, where she works to encourage more women into the tech sector by providing software development skills and education.

Prior to her work at Code First Girls, she co-founded and was CEO of performance management firm Frisbee, which was part of venture capital fund Founders Factory. Until summer 2024, she was was a board member for the Institute of Coding, where she focused specifically on diversity and inclusion. She is also a self-employed commercial and strategy consultant.

As part of her role as partner and head of digital for Europe at Oliver Wyman, O’Neill leads digital transformation and new proposition launches at companies all over the world.

Alongside this, she is also a strategic partner at FutureDotNow, a board trustee for Girlguiding and special adviser to the founder at The Youth Group.

Sillem worked for the Royal Academy of Engineering for 12 years before being appointed its CEO in 2018. Previous roles at the academy include deputy CEO and director of strategy, director of programmes and fellowship, and head of international activities.

As well as her work for the academy, Sillem is a trustee of EngineeringUK and the Foundation for Science and Technology, and CEO of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Lakhani founded Century Tech as a teaching and learning platform focused on subjects such as artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive neuroscience, big data analytics and blockchain, where she is also CEO.

A frequent public speaker, she has previously been a member of the UK’s AI Council, a board member for the Foundation for Education Development, a board member for Unboxed 2022, and a non-executive director for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

She is a digital patron for Cottesmore School, and has appeared on the BBC’s AI Decoded news segment. She was awarded an OBE in 2014.

Mary McKenna is a huge supporter of entrepreneurship and startups, holding several roles as an adviser and investor. Her social enterprise, AwakenHub, where she is co-founder, is focused on building a community of female founders in Ireland.

As well as being an expert adviser for the European Commission, she is an entrepreneurship expert with the Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, and a trustee for CAST, among many other board memberships and non-executive directorships.

Thorne is co-CEO of Tech She Can, a charity aimed at increasing the number of women in the technology sector, as well as a venture partner at Deep Science Ventures and a diversity and inclusion advisory board member for the Institute of Coding.

She has a background in the education sector, previously holding roles as director of innovation strategy for the University of Surrey and executive officer to the vice-president (innovation) at Imperial College London.

Williams is CEO of inclusion campaign FutureDotNow, which aims to ensure people are not left behind by the growing skills gap caused by digital adoption. She is a member of the UK government’s Digital Skills Council, and chair of the Good Things Foundation.

Prior to her current work, Williams spent more than 20 years at BT in a number of different roles, including programme director for sustainable business, director of tech literacy and education programmes, and director of digital society. Until 2024, she was a member of the board of trustees for Transport for London.

With a background in law surrounding telecoms, the internet and media, Wright now uses her expertise as director of not-for-profit The Institute of AI, as well as partner at Harbottle & Lewis, heading up the tech, data and digital group.

She has worked in the tech sector for over 20 years. Her team at Harbottle & Lewis is comprised of 66% female and 66% ethnic minority members.

During 2023, she worked with the OECD, WEF and the ITU to build a reputation in relation to the regulation of AI. She is also working with the Ditchley Foundation, considering whether the collaborative approach in relation to telecoms can work for AI regulation.

In her 30 years at KPMG, Mehta has had many responsibilities, including building the firm’s focus on trade and investment, and helping scaleup clients to access financial support.

She is now chair of the organisation, and in 2022 was awarded an MBE for services to UK trade and investment and supporting female entrepreneurs.

An expert in diversity, inclusion and community building, Farooq co-founded Muslamic Makers in 2016 as a networking group for Muslims in tech, design and development.

As well as a freelance diversity and inclusion consultant, Farooq is a scout for Ada Ventures with special interest in edtech, healthtech and fintech, and until March 2024 was a community manager for Big Society Capital.

She has an extensive background in digital and AI in both the private and public sectors.

Taylor co-founded TechReturners, where she is currently CEO, to give skilled individuals who have had a career break the opportunity to connect with firms and help them back into mid-level to senior-level tech roles.

She is also co-founder of The Confidence Community, which aims to provide resources, training information and events to give people more career confidence. Taylor is co-founder of community WIT North and co-founder of ReframeWIT.

She recently founded community platform Voices in Tech to help connect speakers with event opportunities.

Dawes has headed up Ofcom since 2020 following her previous role as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as many other roles across the Civil Service.

She has previously been a trustee at Patchwork Foundation, which aims to encourage under-represented young people to participate in democracy, and a non-executive director of consumer group Which?.

Award-winning entrepreneur Avril Chester is currently the CTO of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, her most recent in a series of roles heading up technology in organisations. In 2018, she founded technology charity platform Cancer Central to help support people with cancer.

Martin has a history of working as a test consultant at firms such as Barclays, Sony, the UK Home Office, Shazam and Sky, and is currently a startup adviser and founder of her own coaching and consultancy firm.

Prior to this, she was head of quality at Adarga and is currently chair for the BCS Special Interest Group in Software Testing, and until January 2023 was the vice-chair of the BCS LGBTQIA+ tech specialist group.

Amanda Brock’s role at OpenUK sees her leading the sustainable and ethical development of open technologies in the UK, including technology such as open source software, hardware and data.

She also sits on the boards of both the Cabinet Office Open Standards Board and US cyber security firm Mimoto, is an advisory board member of several firms, as well as acting as a judge for the CIO 100 Awards.

Moore has been at Apps for Good since 2019, originally as director of education, products and events, then as chief operating officer (COO), before becoming CEO in 2021.

Her career background has been heavily weighted towards education, having been international education programme coordinator for London 2012, and volunteering as governor at the Harris Academy Ockendon and Sixth Form.

Tanaka is currently part of the programme team for All4Health&Care, a community launched during the pandemic to connect digital healthcare providers with the public sector. She is also the head of the CMO Office for NHS Black Country ICB, and is on the community support committee for BCS.

Previously, she has been a fellow, independent audit for AI systems for ForHumanity, and BCS Women membership secretary.

Calista has a history in both technology and the public sector.

Alongside her role at Labour Digital, she is head of policy and public affairs at UK scaleup Vorboss, and she co-founded network Women in Tech Policy.

She volunteers as an adviser for digital citizenship charity Glitch, and is a policy board member for OpenUK.

With experience in cloud at companies such as Salesforce and IBM, Kelisky started her role at Google in 2022 well-equipped with the skills needed to run its cloud division.

Alongside this, Kelisky is on the board of directors for Calnex Solutions, and is a member of the board of directors for the Women in Telecoms and Technology networking group.

Lila Ibrahim became Google DeepMind’s first COO in 2018, looking after teams in disciplines such as engineering, virtual environments, programme management and operations.

Prior to this role, she was COO of online skills platform Coursera, and has also acted at general manager for emerging markets platforms in China at Intel.

Philpot has a background in both sales, and learning and development, which she uses in her role as the vice-president of global sales enablement at Getty Images. She has held various roles both in and outside of sales at many notable firms, such as Shell, Mars and GSK.

As well as being a board member for the TLA Black Women in Tech group, she is a member and speaker for the Sales Enablement Directive.

Hodson has an extensive background in the technology sector, and has had roles such as managing consultant at EY and general manager at Siemens Business Services responsible for public sector, healthcare, financial services and manufacturing.

More recently, she was vice-president for global sales, marketing and operations – field transformation at Microsoft, before becoming chief executive of IBM in UK and Ireland at the beginning of 2023.

She’s also a board member and deputy president of TechUK, and holds several non-executive directorships.

As managing director of Jomas Associates (Engineering & Environmental), Savage specialises in geotechnical and environmental engineering.

She is also passionate about topics such as women in engineering and social mobility, and is on the UK government’s SME Business Council.

With a long history of CEO positions, Kirkby has experience in running companies with a background in telecoms, and in February this year took over as CEO of BT Group. Her past CEO roles have included TDC group, Tele2 and Telia, and she is also a non-executive director of Brookfield asset management.

Barclay has been with Microsoft for more than 10 years, holding several roles including director of SMB, general manager of small and mid-market solutions and partners, COO, and CEO in the UK.

In November 2024, she became president of enterprise and industry for Microsoft in the UK. She is chair of the industrial strategy advisory council for the Department for Business and Trade, volunteers as a board member for the British Heart Foundation and, until recently, was a non-executive director at CBI.

Oniwinde Agoro founded BYP Network in 2016 to help black professionals network and have easier access to jobs, after a trip abroad confirmed the challenges young black people face in getting jobs both in and outside the UK.

Until 2024, she was board trustee for volunteer organisation Getting On Board, and has received several awards and accolades, including Forbes 30 Under 30 and Financial Times Top 100 BAME Leaders in Technology.

Wallace heads up diversity and inclusion, partnerships and people change at Sky, and one of her focuses in this role is designing and delivering the people strategy for technology within the firm.

Outside of this, Wallace was a member of the advisory board for recently disbanded Tech Talent Charter, and volunteers as a cub and scout assistant.

Scullion is a serial founder, having founded dressCode, a not-for-profit that encourages young women in Scotland to consider a career in computer science, and co-founded the Ada Scotland Festival, which aims to use collaboration to close the gender gap in computer science education in Scotland.

These endeavours stem from her being a computer science teacher passionate about encouraging more children to take the subject. Alongside this work, she is a volunteer for the Scottish Tech Army, a not-for-profit aimed at using tech for good.

Earlier this year, Tulip took on the role of chief growth officer at software engineering consultancy Conquer Technology. In 2018, she co-founded community-led initiative Women In Leeds Digital, which encourages and helps minority groups to consider a career in technology.

Tulip is also chair of the regional productivity forum in Yorkshire, Humberside and the North East for the Productivity Institute, ambassador for Leeds as a digital city at Leeds City Council, and managing director at &Then Consulting.

Moore co-founded data analytics and AI firm Panintelligence in 2010 with the aim of helping firms properly organise their data to more easily adopt AI. She became CEO in 2018.

Alongside this, Moore also founded low-code tech community No Code Lab and gender equality community Lean In Leeds. As well as a position as chair for Lifted Ventures, Moore is an Ada Angel for inclusive venture firm Ada Ventures.

As global director of identity at Sky, Moore is responsible for leading the firm’s identity management projects. Prior to this, she held several roles as a project manager, and was previously the head of infotainment group technology for Vodafone.

As well as being a member of the board for Tech Talent Charter, she is the co-founder of female tech leaders community Lift as we Climb.

Maria Axente is the head of AI public policy and ethics at PwC in the UK, where she combines her skills in analytics and ethical AI policy development to ensure AI is developed with humans in mind.

Previously, she was the artificial intelligence and AI-for-good lead at the firm, responsible for advising clients on responsible use of AI, and ensuring ethical development of PwC AI operations, products and services.

She’s a vice-chair for the data, analytics and AI leadership committee at TechUK, and in the past she has been an advisory board member for the APPG for AI, and adviser for the PHI for Augmented Intelligence.

As CEO of Nash Squared, White heads up the global firm which provides IT recruitment, technology solutions and leadership services out of 36 offices across the world.

White has a long background in the tech sector, having previously held roles as CIO and director of IT, as well as completing a degree in computer science.

Bentinck was named a Computer Weekly Rising Star in 2014, and has co-founded several organisations, including Entrepreneur First, a firm that supports European technology startups, and not-for-profit coding training programme Code First Girls.

She is on the Computer Science Department Industrial Liaison Board for Imperial College London, is a board trustee for Generation and is the author of startup business book How to be a founder.

Hirt joined Innovate Finance in 2015 as the industry body’s head of community, before eventually becoming its CEO six years later. She now heads up the organisation, aiming to drive innovation and transformation in the fintech sector to make it more inclusive.

She has worked around the world in a variety of roles, including acting head of corporate relations for Chatham House in the UK, head of membership for the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce in New York, and head new hire trainer for an English language training programme in Japan.

Davis is the co-founder of diversity career platform Diversifying, and founder and CEO of recruitment organisation BAME Recruitment and Consulting.

She is chair of the board of directors for Pop Up Projects and a board trustee for charity Over the Wall, both aimed at changing young people’s lives for the better.

Davis has previously held roles in talent acquisition in the STEM sector, at telecoms firm BT, and as part of a short-term project at an aerospace, aviation, F1 and motorsport organisation.

The first female to head up GCHQ, Keast-Butler moved into the director role last year after serving as deputy director general of MI5. With a long career in security and defence, her previous roles have included overseeing the upkeep of functions that support MI5’s operational activities and the launch of the UK’s National Cyber Security Programme.

As well as her work as senior EUC engineer, infrastructure and cloud engineering at the London Stock Exchange Group, Opong is a freelancer and STEM adviser and a board trustee for The Blair Project Foundation.

Until recently, she was part of the City of London Corporation volunteer advisory group for equality, diversity and inclusion, and was previously an advisory board member for Neurodiversity in Business, and a mentor at the TechUp mentor programme for Durham University.

Opong was a contributor for Voices in the shadows, the book of black female role models created by the 2022 Computer Weekly Most Influential Woman in UK Tech, Flavilla Fongang.

Munby has a long history of working in government, and became permanent secretary leading the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in February 2023.

She has also been partner, leader of strategy and corporate finance practice in UK and Ireland at McKinsey & Company, where she led the firm’s work on productivity across the UK economy.

Crosswell is managing director of consulting firm Exadin, as well as chair for the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology. She holds several other non-executive directorships in firms such as Freemarket and the Centre for Policy Studies. In 2021, she received an OBE for services to the financial services sector.

Graham has been the CEO of not-for-profit the ScaleUp Institute since 2015, and has an OBE for services to UK business and economy.

As well as being a visiting professor of entrepreneurship at Strathclyde University, Graham holds various non-executive and advisory roles.

As CEO of Salesforce in the UK and Ireland, Bahrololoumi is responsible for the workforce in these regions across all industries and functions, and is particularly focused on ensuring its customers are ready for digital transformation.

She sits on several boards, including for Seeing Is Believing Coventry Place, Movement to Work and Cancer Research UK Corporate Partnerships, and is an independent non-executive director on the TSB board.

In 2023, she was awarded a CBE for services to the information technology sector.

Naming the technology sector her “familiar territory”, Gardner has an extensive background in the technology sector, having held roles such as first line support at Fujitsu, senior supply chain administrator at Technicolor and project manager at the BBC as a member of the BBC’s Design and Technology Business Management Unit HQ Team.

Now, she’s a business operations analyst as part of the technology arm of News UK, and is a board trustee of food and hygiene bank Necessities UK.

Cardell has been at the Competition and Markets Authority since 2013, first as general counsel, then as interim CEO, and now as CEO.

Prior to her time at the Competition and Markets Authority, she was a legal partner for the markets division of energy markets authority Ofgem, and in her early career spent 11 years at law firm Slaughter and May, working her way from trainee solicitor to partner.

Sinel founded Teens in AI and Acorn Aspirations to help young people who want to solve real-world problems using technology such as AI, virtual, augmented and mixed reality.

She has won awards for her work, including CogX 2017 Award in Using AI for Social Good Projects, and is currently an education taskforce committee member for the All Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, and a business mentor at Microsoft for Startups.

Before working on Acorn Associates and Teens in AI, Sinel was a consultant for several firms, including the British Council, NGOs, Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Ethiopian Cultural Heritage Project. 

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Data bill aims to boost police and NHS productivity

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5 November 2024

Data bill aims to boost police and NHS productivity

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In this week’s Computer Weekly, the government’s new data bill promises to improve productivity and efficiency for the NHS and police, but will it ensure privacy as well? We talk to Dell’s global CTO about how the IT giant sees the AI boom playing out. And we examine which industries stand to benefit most from the collaboration opportunities of virtual reality. Read the issue now.

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Gartner Symposium: Why ServiceNow wants to be seen as the AI platform for business transformation

ServiceNow and Rimini Street have expanded their partnership to enable organisations to use older enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as a starting point for enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.

Using a single architecture and single data model from ServiceNow with Rimini Street’s third-party enterprise software support, the offering is being positioned as a way to enable organisations to innovate across procurement, finance, supply chain, HR, customer service and IT.

The partnership with Rimini Street represents a major step in the company’s strategy to evolve from case management to delivering AI-enabled workflow management that can coordinate and orchestrate systems of record in business, and also improve by learning from the data these systems hold.

During a presentation at the Gartner Symposium in Barcelona, Hartmut Mueller, chief transformation officer at ServiceNow, described the company’s platform as “connecting all systems of record and connecting [their] metrics to the value stream”.

In other words, if an AI can learn from the data held in traditional enterprise systems, it can figure out how to improve the business processes these applications power.

AI without new enterprise systems

Business and IT leaders need to justify the cost of new platform investments, and this is where the partnership with Rimini Street has been positioned.

Speaking to Computer Weekly during the Gartner conference, Eric Helmer, chief technology officer at Rimini Street, said that in the past, the chief information officer (CIO) role has traditionally been back-office. “People were expected to keep the lights on, run the business of IT and firefight,” he said. “The new role of the CIO is in the front office.” This implies their actions have a direct impact on the organisation’s bottom line.

“Today’s CIOs are expected to be the ideas people, and they are expected to figure out things like artificial intelligence and come up with revolutionary ideas that will be game-changers for the business,” he added.

However, as Gartner warned at the start of the annual European conference, it’s easy to lose a lot of money on misguided AI initiatives. A Gartner survey of 300 CIOs conducted in July found that 90% believe managing costs is limiting the value they can get from AI. Moreover, as every enterprise software provider AI-enables their products, Gartner expects a large proportion of IT budgets are likely to be spent on these products. 

But ServiceNow, in collaboration with Rimini Street, is trying to offer a different approach, which relies on the third-party support provider’s track record in keeping ERP systems from the major providers running, even after mainstream support has officially ended. These older systems of records remain useful, if not essential, data sources for machine learning to improve ServiceNow’s understanding of how the business operates.

Helmer said the partnership with ServiceNow helps IT departments make more use of existing enterprise IT assets. “If the value of an ERP system for AI is the data it contains, then the version of ERP you run becomes irrelevant because you already have the data,” he said.

While ServiceNow is often seen as a company specialising in case management, Helmer said it has a raft of tools focused on IT modernisation, which sit on top of existing IT assets. These, he said, can be used to modernise the user interface, automate workflows, and run AI and predictive analytics. “GenAI capabilities can be achieved in a matter of months, instead of years,” he claimed, since the ERP system does not have to be upgraded to the latest AI-capable version first.

Bill McDermott, chairman and chief executive officer at ServiceNow, described the enterprise systems deployed in businesses as 20th-century systems that hundred progress. “ServiceNow’s partnership with Rimini Street gives customers a more unified, intelligent platform to maximise their existing software investments, for faster paths to transformation,” he said.

The fact that ServiceNow can be applied to manage business processes just as it’s used in case management offers a way, according to Helmer, to route and automate workflows between various line-of-business applications, which means IT leaders do not need to go through the cost and disruption of an enterprise application modernisation programme to get the benefits of AI.

Switching software maintenance to third-party support has traditionally been regarded as something only a few brave IT leaders embark on.

Being a premier sponsor at the Gartner Symposium, alongside the likes of AWS, PWC and SAP among others, is perhaps an indication of where ServiceNow sees itself in the corporate IT landscape. If it’s successful at offering an AI platform for running and optimising business processes, there may well be a compelling reason not to upgrade to the latest AI-enabled enterprise system and rely, instead, on third-party support of an existing ERP system.

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Starmer announces tech-enabled crackdown on people smuggling

UK prime minister Keir Starmer has committed an extra £75m to the recently established Border Security Command (BSC) to fund its acquisition and use of “state-of-the-art surveillance equipment”, as part of a wider clampdown on the “national security threat” of people smuggling gangs.

Speaking at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow on Monday 4 November, Starmer said that the UK government will apply a counter-terrorism approach to border security in an attempt to end the “fragmentation” between policing, Border Force and intelligence agencies.

“The world needs to wake up to the severity of this challenge. I was elected to deliver security for the British people. And strong borders are a part of that. But security doesn’t stop at our borders,” he said. 

“There’s nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the Channel. This is a vile trade that must be stamped out – wherever it thrives. So, we’re taking our approach to counter-terrorism, which we know works, and applying it to the gangs, with our new Border Security Command.”

The new investment in border security builds on £75m the UK government previously committed to the BSC in September 2024, which focused on unlocking “sophisticated new technology and extra capabilities”, such as covert cameras, monitoring technologies, new intelligence units, and improving intelligence and information flows between law enforcement bodies.

This means the overall investment into the BSC – which was set up in July 2024 to coordinate the work of the National Crime Agency (NCA), intelligence agencies, police forces, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force – will be £150m over the next two years.

The government outlined the additional £75m investment into the BSC will be used to boost the NCA’s technology and capabilities, including through the delivery of “advanced data exploitation”, using technology to boost collaboration with European partners, and providing it with a further 100 specialist investigators and intelligence officers.

The funding will also see the creation of a specialist intelligence unit to “cohere intelligence flows from key police forces”, and provide the 300 new staff to the BSC itself.

“Our new Border Security Command, with the investment set out today, will mean a huge step change in the way we target these criminal gangs,” said home secretary Yvette Cooper. “People smugglers and traffickers operate in networks across borders, that’s why we have launched a major boost to our cooperation with international partners including other European countries, the G7 and Europol, and why we are so pleased to be hosting the Interpol conference on tackling international crime in Glasgow today.”

Speaking on BBC Breakfast after the BSC funding announcement, Cooper said: “We need to make progress as fast as possible because no one should be making these dangerous boat crossings”, adding that small boat crossings are “undermining Britain’s border security and putting lives at risk”.

Enforcement ‘will not end horrific trade’

However, some charities have criticised the government’s focus on enforcement, noting it could lead to desperate people taking more dangerous and deadly journeys. They suggested that, instead, the government should focus on creating safe and legal routes for refugees to enter the UK, which are currently extremely limited.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The government must recognise that enforcement measures alone will not end this horrific trade. It must balance strong action against criminal networks with its commitment to uphold international rules that provide safety to those who need it most.”

Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network, added that the UK government’s “focus on the intermediaries supporting sanctuary seekers to get to safety in the UK is just another attempt to deflect the UK’s refugee protection obligations”. 

“Current legislation is already making people vulnerable to using intermediaries to get to the UK because they are refusing to offer safe routes for people of all nationalities,” said Qureshi. “Offering safe routes for all instead of focusing on invasive tech surveillance would reduce the need for anyone to have to use intermediaries to reach the UK, and eliminate the unnecessary investment in surveillance technologies that invade all of our privacies.”

A Parliamentary research briefing published 7 October 2024 noted while there are four broad categories of “safe and legal” routes to the UK, each has a distinct eligibility criteria, and not all of them grant the beneficiaries actual refugee status (which “means that only some people on the UK’s safe and legal entry pathways receive all the protections laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention”).

It added: “The Labour government isn’t considering increasing safe and legal routes to the UK.”

As it stands, Amnesty International has said that the current immigration rules provide no safe or legal routes for someone to come to the UK for the purpose of claiming asylum, unless they are from Ukraine, Hong Kong or Afghanistan (and, in that case, have worked for the British government). While people are able to claim asylum from within the UK, the Home Office is explicit that it will not consider claims made from abroad.

Computer Weekly contacted the Home Office for comment, including about the criticisms that the UK government is focusing on enforcement over creating safe routes.

Asked in Parliament on 30 October 2024 about whether the government plans to introduce new safe and legal routes, undersecretary for migration and citizenship Seema Mlahotra said that these routes would continue to play an important role.

“This country will always do our bit alongside others to help those fleeing war and persecution, but we need a proper system where rules are enforced,” she said. “Our priority right now is the relocation of those who have been identified as eligible for resettlement under our resettlement schemes, and fixing the gaps in existing routes. That is why we have already taken steps to support the reunification of Afghan families under the [Afghan Citizen Resettlement Scheme] ACRS route.”

The Home Office said that 230 people crossed the English Channel in small boats on 31 October, bringing the total for that month to 5,417. The total for 2024 so far stands at 30,661. More than 50 people have died trying to cross the English Channel this year, the highest since figures were first recorded in 2018.

Ongoing border tech investment

In February 2024, the Home Office signed a data sharing and technology-collaboration agreement with EU border agency Frontex to crack down on small boats crossing the English Channel. Apart from improving both sides’ operational response through improved intelligence and information sharing, the agreement also promised closer collaboration on research and development (R&D) into technologies such as drones and airborne surveillance.

The Telegraph reported that the deal would also enable Border Force officers to access live intelligence mapping of migrants’ movements across Europe, giving UK authorities eyes over the entirety of the bloc’s external borders.

The previous UK government also repeatedly committed to making Channel crossings on small boats “unviable”, which it sought to achieve in part by making a range of surveillance capabilities available to border authorities.

The UK’s already-extensive surveillance capabilities in the English Channel – a stretch of water just 21 miles long – include the use unmanned aerial vehicles, manned aircraft such as planes or helicopters, artificial intelligence-powered satellites, and a variety of sensors and radars.

These technologies and the data they produce are often advertised as a way of monitoring and countering migrant crossings in the Channel.

Lawyers, human rights groups and migrant support organisations previously told Computer Weekly that while the various technologies deployed do have the capacity to protect people’s lives if used differently, they are currently used with the clear intention of deterring migrants from crossing – or helping to punish those who do.

A similar enforcement-focused approach is being adopted by other European countries, which are seeking increasingly hardline approaches to irregular migration. In early October 2024, for example, 17 European countries – including 14 European Union (EU) members – signed a letter demanding a tough “paradigm shift” on migration, arguing that governments “must be empowered” to carry out deportations “in full respect” of fundamental rights.

“People without the right to stay must be held accountable. A new legal basis must clearly define their obligations and duties,” said the countries in a letter to the European Commission. “Non-cooperation must have consequences and be sanctioned.”

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