UK Space Agency Origins
Earlier this month, the government announced changes to the management of the UK civil space programme. From April 2026, the UK Space Agency will lose its executive agency status and be absorbed into the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Today’s post recalls the origins of the agency, and tomorrow’s follow up revisits a blog post I wrote while working there.
UK Space Agency Origins
Towards the end of 2009, I was tasked with running a public consultation to ascertain attitudes towards establishing a civil space agency in the UK. Responses indicated overwhelming support for the creation of an agency, from public, industry, and academia, as well as international organisations. The project was approved under the oversight of the Labour Science Minister, Lord Drayson. A UK Space Agency would be created to replace the existing British National Space Centre (BNSC).
While the official ‘presentational’ launch took place in April 2010, there remained a huge amount to do behind the scenes. British space policy and budgets had previously been handled by a partnership of government departments and research councils. To replace the partnership (the BNSC) with an agency meant combining budgets, policies, and staff teams from the:
- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, (BIS);
- Department for Children, Schools and Families, (DCSF);
- Department for Transport, (DfT);
- Ministry of Defence, (MOD);
- Foreign and Commonwealth Office, (FCO);
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, (Defra);
- Natural Environment Research Council, (NERC);
- Science and Technology Facilities Council, (STFC);
- Met Office; and
- Technology Strategy Board, (TSB).
All within rules set by Cabinet Office, and the Treasury. The process can take years, but I was given just twelve months to complete the set up.
Key Tasks
Some of the top level tasks when establishing a government agency include:
- Agreeing any new legislation – can be a lengthy process involving parliamentary debate and committee reviews;
- Setting the agency’s mandate;
- Securing adequate funding, staffing, and other resources – often using a series of Service Level Agreements;
- Developing the agency’s operational model, policies, and procedures for its specific functions; and
- Agreeing how the agency will operate nationally and internationally.
In the case of the UK Space Agency a staged process was agreed through which the agency would take on control of budgets and management functions from across the aforementioned partnership organisations.
Other work included, inter alia, agreeing organisational structure and vision statement, negotiating staff terms and conditions, setting up a steering board and executive committee, arranging IT support, tendering for logo design, and developing web content.
Twelve months of little sleep, far too many energy drinks, and support from colleagues across government, and the agency was established. This all took place alongside an unsettling time politically following the General Election in May 2010, which resulted in a hung parliament. Having failed to agree terms of a Labour/Liberal Democrat partnership, Gordon Brown, the Labour Prime Minster resigned leaving a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition to take over.
What Next?
There’s a certain circularity in a returning Labour government removing the executive function which the last serving Labour administration wanted so much to create. I’m no longer close enough to the machineries of government to comment on the political impact of the decision.
The official line is that the agency will retain its function and independent identify, while streamlining resources. Personally, I feel there’s a danger the agency will lose the independence of its identity, and become more bureaucratic. Space policy might be deprioritised in favour of other departmental ambitions. Whatever happens next, today’s post is a place marker which offers some insight into the original creation of the agency.
