ࡱ>  !ܥhc e]6=]3<<<<<<< = = = = = = = ="=1 = = = = = = = = ="="="="="="=S=X=P"=< = = = = ="= =<< = = = = = =< =< = =K(EL = =<<<< = = = =Scottish Left Review Past Issues Issue 27: Atomised science Author: Jim and Margaret Cuthbert Atomised science Jim and Margaret Cuthbert find that disjointed policy across the border is harming Scottish science The link between devolved and reserved responsibilities is vitally important: to give one example, the Department of Trade and Industry has UK wide responsibility for developing the knowledge economy. It is clearly desirable that this should interact efficiently with the way the Executive discharges its responsibility for developing the Scottish economy. Unfortunately, despite the importance of interface issues, the evidence that we have uncovered indicates that they are not being handled well indeed, in some respects, such issues are being handled less well now than they were pre-devolution. By common consent, at all levels of government and beyond, having a vibrant science base is vital for the development of the economy and to maintain competitiveness in an increasingly globalised world. Under devolution, important parts of government support for science fall on either side of the devolved/reserved boundary. The Scottish Executive, from its devolved funds, is responsible for funding the higher education sector in Scotland, not just for teaching, but also for its core research capabilities. The Executive also funds certain non-university research institutes including the five Scottish Agricultural and Biological Research Institutes, (SABRIs). And, through initiatives such as the Proof of Concept Fund and the Intermediary Technology Institutes, is seeking to have a major impact on research and development and its commercialisation. On the other hand, it is Westminster which is responsible for overall science policy and, from reserved funds, for funding the research councils, who allocate grants to research projects across the whole of the UK. There are particular features about science which mean that it differs fundamentally from more traditional devolved services. For services such as health and education, it makes sense, indeed it is inherent in the very idea of devolution, for each administration to organise the service within its area as it sees fit. But as regards science, each part of the UK has a vested interest in ensuring that the science base for the UK works well, not just in the interests of each individual country but as a coherent whole. This was recognised in a report by the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1999 which stated; These are benefits, which Scotland shares, which flow from the large size and competitiveness of the UK basic research system. The diseconomies of small scale are severe, and barriers between Scotland and the rest of the UK would be to the great disadvantage of all. It is vital therefore that Scotland remains a well integrated part of the UK SET base. These particular features of science do not mean that all of science should be reserved to Westminster, or that the Scottish Executive should restrict itself to areas of science that are of local significance. On the contrary, it is clearly essential that the Scottish Executive has a major stake in what is one of the commanding heights of the economy and that Scotland retains and enhances its tradition for world class science. It is entirely appropriate that the Scottish Executive is responsible for a significant part of the UK science base. But what is also required is for there to be effective liaison mechanisms with the agencies responsible for funding other parts of the UK science base; both those responsible for spending reserved funding for the whole of the UK (such as the research councils), and those who are responsible for administering English devolved spend in support of the higher education system in England, as well as those responsible for devolved spend in other parts of the UK. So how well are the UK governments grappling with the complex requirements surrounding the planning and funding of science under devolution? When we looked at the publicly available evidence, the answer was not at all well. The most glaring example we found was the case of the SABRIs, and it is a discussion of this example which forms a major part of our recent Fraser of Allander paper. The SABRIs are prestigious research institutions, originally concerned primarily with agriculture, but now also more broadly involved in other areas such as biotechnology, genetics and immunology. Their core funding of 35.6 million (2003-04), is provided by direct grant by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs department (SEERAD), i.e. out of devolved funding, and in constitutional terms this makes the SABRIs sponsored bodies of the Executive - a status which, as we show, has important and unfortunate implications for the SABRIs. It is clear from various statements made by SEERAD that the SABRIs are meant to fulfil a role which ranges from supporting Scottish Executive ministers legislative, policy and enforcement to forming part of the UK science base, which involves taking the UK lead in certain specific areas and carrying out strategic research of international significance. We are not qualified to comment on how the SABRIs carry out these roles - other than to say that it seems clear that the SABRIs do indeed carry out much excellent work. What is clear, however, is that the way the Scottish Executive has chosen to organise the SABRIs places them under a grave handicap as regards their ability to access major sources of reserved, and other, funding. This arises because of the Haldane principle, dating from 1918, which states that research money derived from government sources should not be linked to governments own agendae. Under this directive, the research councils do not provide funds to support government policy-driven research. As sponsored bodies of the Executive, the SABRIs fall foul of this rule, which means they are not eligible to apply for the bulk of research council funding. Even worse, since major charities like the Wellcome Foundation adopt similar principles to the research councils, the SABRIs are debarred from such major charity funding as well. The SABRIs are thus put in an anomalous, not to say ridiculous, position. They are meant to be a vital part of the UK science base and yet they are debarred from applying for the major reserved source of funding for this base, unlike higher education institutes and, very significantly, unlike sister bodies such as the John Innes and Rothamsted institutes down South. These sister institutes, while doing complementary strategic research to the SABRIs, are charitable trusts and are successful in attracting very significant amounts of research council funding. In essence, England has organised things differently in this field. The direct policy support for the Department of the Environment, Fisheries and Rural Affairs, (the equivalent English department to SEERAD), is carried out by an executive agency, the Central Science Laboratory. Strategic research is contracted out to the charitable institutes and to higher education institutes. The SABRIs anomalous position has a number of adverse implications. First, it greatly reduces the ability for extra funding to be leveraged in by the investment the Scottish Executive makes in the SABRIs. For example, in 2001-02, funding of 32 million put into the SABRIs by the Scottish Executive resulted in total SABRI funding of 52million, taking into account funding from other sources. However, the SABRIs sister institutions, mainly in England, attracted 27 million from English departments, but this leveraged in the much greater total of 117million in all, a large part of which was from the research councils. Second, this handicap on the SABRIs arguably distorts the Scottish Executives own priorities. On the face of it, it could seem surprising that the Scottish Executive devotes as much as 50 million in total to support the SABRIs, the Scottish Agricultural College and the Royal Botanics, compared with its support of 177 million towards all basic research at Scottish Higher Education institutes. Third, it is possible that the SABRIs own priorities are also distorted. Since they cannot apply for research council funds, this may force them to look for sources of EU or international funding, which may be tied to projects which are less relevant to the needs of the Scottish or UK economies. The failure of the Scottish Executive to recognise and address the implications of the SABRIs anomalous position falls little short of incompetence. More generally, what requirements should be fulfilled by the system of planning and funding science under devolution? We suggest that there are three primary requirements. Firstly, fully integrated planning of respective contributions to the UK science base by devolved departments and by departments managing reserved functions. Secondly, where a devolved department is (through historical accident, or choice, or both) responsible for a section of the UK science base, then this should not distort the priorities of the departments own science budget. Thirdly, where the UK science base is funded both by devolved and reserved funds, then these different financing streams should interact efficiently. We have seen, from the example of the SABRIs that the second and third requirements are not met under the present system. (Indeed, the second criterion is unlikely to be met under any system which involves a devolved administration funding part of the UK national science base from funds which are ultimately determined by the Barnett formula.) It is also abundantly clear, unfortunately, that neither is the third requirement. Two quotations taken from the UKs Council for Science and Technology Quinquennial Review illustrate this. First, the review recommended that Work should be undertaken urgently to clarify the present relevance of UK-wide science and technology policy to the devolved administrations. Second, the author of the review stated that I have not been able to discover how devolution works in the area of science and technology policy. What can be done about these problems? Given the will, it should not be difficult to tackle the specific problems with the SABRIs. The Haldane principle could be amended, by recognising that government-funded research falls along a spectrum - from short term research for specific applications, to long term strategic research. And that where government is funding an institution to carry out research largely at the latter end of the spectrum, there is considerable potential benefit to all concerned if the institution is also able to bid for research council funding. Failing such a change in Haldane, then an alternative approach would be to alter the constitutional position of the SABRIs themselves so that they became charitable trusts, or merged with higher education institutions. Much more difficult is the wider problem of how the UK science base as a whole should be planned and funded under devolution. It is easy to state platitudes about the need for greater co-ordination: and many such platitudes can be found in government documents. There is, however, a fundamental problem which makes effective co-ordination difficult. This arises because the Westminster Parliament combines the functions both of a quasi-federal parliament looking after reserved functions for the whole of the UK, and a local parliament looking after those responsibilities for England which are devolved to Scotland or Wales. Similarly, Whitehall combines, very often in the same department, both reserved functions and local English responsibilities. Given this, when a problem appears on the Westminster/Whitehall radar, the combined force of reserved and local powers will be brought to bear to solve that problem. In other words, the default position is very much that parts of science which are reserved will be structured to work seamlessly with the way in which devolved science is organised in England. In these circumstances, getting Scotlands interests adequately represented in the planning of UK science will be inherently difficult. We suggest that more needs to be done, not just to improve co-ordination between Scotland and Westminster/Whitehall on science, but also to increase Scotlands basic leverage. Co-ordination could be improved by, for example, giving a senior Scottish minister a seat on the Westminster Ministerial Committee on Science Policy, with the minister being shadowed by a senior professional adviser. But for increased leverage, Scotland really needs to bring more cards to the table: and one way of doing this could be, for example, to devolve to Scotland the Scottish component of the work and funding of the research councils. Paradoxically, a greater degree of devolution might actually improve the currently unsatisfactory way in which the science base is planned, for the benefit not just of Scotland but for the UK as a whole. Jim Cuthbert was formerly Chief Statistician at the Scottish Office. Margaret Cuthbert is an economist. !.A<C^no] ^ 78*+?@$$**2255[6\6]66u]cV]cVU]cUPb c!<^o^ 8+@$*25\6]6K@Normala c,@, Heading 1dd U]c0k$(@"( Heading 2ddU]c$"A@"Default Paragraph Font O face1dd]OStrongU]3]66]6@1Times New Roman Symbol "Arial"he&f&nZ*ZP Scottish Left Review Past IssuesJ & M CuthbertJ & M Cuthbert #+Root Entry FK(EL"WordDocument=CompObjjSummaryInformation(  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89qOh+'0 (4 \ h t!Scottish Left Review Past Issues1 J & M Cuthbert{!=0NormalJ & M Cuthbert10.Microsoft Word for WDocumentSummaryInformation8   FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89qxselfZ !Scottish Left Review Past Issuesindows 95@F#@eDL@ )ELnZ*՜.+,0@HX` hp xselfZ !Scottish Left Review Past Issues