On February 7th, two days after his appointment, Steve Barclay held court in No. 10, telling staff he wants an environment that is “mutually supportive of each other” and adding “my door is always open”. Beyond the fluffy words Barclay spoke of one solid plan to improve Downing Street’s operation – better data. 

It now seems he’s making good on this commitment. Three job vacancies have been put up on the civil servants’ portal, all for the Downing Street data unit – a £60,000 “Data Scientist”, a £60,000 “Data Architect/Engineer” and a £60,000 “Front End Developer”. 

Guido would recommend Barclay tempers his hopes, however. A year ago last week, Guido reported that No. 10 were beefing up Dom Cummings’s data unit with a drive for a new £135,000-a-year expert, to set up a “skunkworks” inside Downing Street to “drive forward the quantitative revolution”. The data unit hasn’t thus far managed to save Cummings, nor Rosenfield – Barclay better have something else up his sleeve…