Examination of Witness (Questions 10 - 19)
WEDNESDAY 17 JUNE
SIR ROBERT
MAY
10. You alluded to your department, the OST,
being within DTI. An age old question: is that the best place
for it to be? Where do you think it ought to be? Would it increase
your influence, do you think, if it were moved from where it is,
decrease it or what?
(Sir Robert May) It is a very interesting and much
discussed question. There is a trade-off here in a sense between
the trans-departmental Chief Scientist part of this slightly schizophrenic
role, and the head of the Office of Science and Technology, running
the science base, seeing it is run effectively and trying to maximise
the degree to which we exploit it wisely. From the point of view
of that latter, of trying to run the science base well and at
the same time think of how best it be us that exploit it to our
advantage rather than others, then putting OST within DTI is a
good place to put it, and there are many stories of the improved
relationship between the old and traditional part of DTI and us,
provided always in my view there is a clear demarcation at the
budgetary level. It is my understanding that it is current Government
policy that we have two distinct budgets in the comprehensive
spending review. There have been two quite separate budget proposals,
rather unusual from a single department, one from the OST, within
its ring-fence, the other from the rest of DTI. My understanding
and my belief of the President of the Board of Trade's understanding,
is that those two comprehensive spending review proposals are
as distinct as is OST from defence or health. Subject to that
proviso, that is probably the best place to have it put. On the
other hand, from the point of view of the Chief Scientist, for
many of the cross-departmental issues one wishes to raise it would
be somewhat easier if one were based right at the centre. I cannot
have both of those things and I do not believe we are unduly hampered
in that latter role because ultimately the discharge of that function
of Chief Scientist, which I just spelled out, involves access
to Cabinet committees and Cabinet Ministers, easy access to the
centre and good awareness of inter-ministerial correspondence,
access to Ministers on a one to one basis if I want it, and all
of that I get from DTI. There is a fairly clear understanding
in the Government that although the OST is based in DTI, the Chief
Scientist's direct reporting line is to the Prime Minister.
Dr Williams
11. I can understand your role within OST. I
can understand your links to 10 Downing Street and the machinery
of government, even though those are links which very much give
you a lot of licence and your job is what you make of it. I am
less clear about your link across the departments. You mentioned
earlier that in the comprehensive spending review you met some
of the Ministers. What about the chief scientists in each department?
Do you have regular meetings with say the health, defence, agriculture
and so on chief scientists?
(Sir Robert May) Yes. There is a Cabinet committee
whose title is a meaningless jumble of capital letters which is
pronounceable—EASO—which is a committee chaired by
myself of chief scientists or their equivalent from each department.
That committee meets fairly regularly in formal session in the
Cabinet Office and it also will meet in working parties, sometimes
working parties as a whole or sometimes small groups. The committee
has existed since the formation of OST. It was originally, to
go back into history, a committee of officials which served a
competitiveness committee I think. We will clarify its history
later. Let us not waste time on its history. Its present function,
which we have learned by doing, is to be a committee which draws
that group of people together. In one way you could put it as
a collegial club in the same way as the Wednesday morning meeting
of the permanent secretaries is a collegial club for sharing worries
and problems about issues. It provides a vehicle in which we can
and do discuss how best and how most effectively to implement
the guidelines on science advice and policy making. How could
we do better about coordinating Foresight? How should we launch
the next Foresight exercise? What does the Chief Scientist think
about that?
12. How do departments decide that they need
advice on a particular subject or an advisory body?
(Sir Robert May) That is a very good question which
goes to the heart. It is all very well to have guidelines on science
advice and policy making. The most difficult question is deciding
when you need advice. From a statutory point of view there would
be some issues which would clearly be the business of a single
department; from a formal and statutory point of view. From a
formal and statutory point of view there would be other issues
which cut across more than one department: Montserrat would be
such a thing with DfID and FCO because they are two different
departments now. The moment they cut across more than one department
then I would argue it is a statutory responsibility of the Chief
Scientist to make sure that things are being coordinated well.
I believe this committee of chief scientists interprets things
more broadly in that even on issues which are clearly a single
department issue, we are in the process of encouraging people
to be thinking early about what issues are going to be difficult,
how best to seek advice, come to EASO and share it with us.
13. Are you generally proactive, in terms of
suggesting this is a problem which needs to be looked at, or are
you reactive, when a problem happens, as we saw last week at the
Bristol Infirmary and then suddenly there is a new policy in the
Department of Health?
(Sir Robert May) Both, though obviously the reactive
thing is easier because by definition reacting is when somebody
says there is a problem and they would like help. The proactive
is harder but certainly in principle I see my role as identifying
things which happen not all that often; it happens but when it
does happen I see it as my role to identify the things which are
not going well and meddle in them.
14. Can you quote an example of the latter one
because it is obviously more difficult to be proactive than to
be so much on top of your job that you are creating work for others?
Something fairly recently which you felt that department needed
to look at.
(Sir Robert May) I can give you examples of proactive
things. They are not necessarily things which are going badly
but things which I figured we ought to meddle in and you can form
your own view of whether they were things which really needed
it. The group chaired by John Shepherd at Southampton, which has
offered independent advice on Brent Spar and similar things, is
a group which differs somewhat from the first group which was
set up to advise Government on that in having a representation
which covers a broader representation of the relevant areas of
science with as much emphasis on biological things in the deep
ocean as on the physics of structures and with three members from
outside this country; two German and one French or two French
and one German if my memory serves me right. That was deliberately
set up in significant part as a result of my intervention and
suggestion that this would be a helpful thing to do which was
quickly embraced by the department which at that time was responsible.
Another example. There is a "high level"—I use
the quotes because Sir Robin Butler did not wish it to be called
the Butler committee—TSE coordinating committee chaired
by the Cabinet Secretary. It did seem to me that here was an issue
where the coordination and the swift effective implementation
of action was in some instances perhaps not all one would have
wished. This is not something I wish to discuss in detail, being
the subject of a separate inquiry. It did seem to me that it would
be helpful to everybody, and again it was a suggestion which was
warmly welcomed by everybody, to have a forum chaired by the highest
civil servant in the land, the grade zero, transcending even the
grade one permanent secretaries, Sir Robin Butler, which would
meet every so often just to talk about how that sort of thing
was going. That was explicitly an intervention by me, seizing
the opportunity presented in the previous Government by John Major
simply asking on a particular issue whether I was happy with all
the machinery we had.
Chairman
15. One very quick point, if I may? I am not
sure whether it was in response to Dr Gibson or Dr Williams but
you did talk about having statutory responsibility for some things.
Was that a precise use of the word? If so, by what statute do
you have statutory responsibility?
(Sir Robert May) It was probably an imprecise use
of the word but I use it in a manner—
16. Official responsibility.
(Sir Robert May) I have the responsibility, for example,
to produce the forward look each year: it simply means various
things must be done.
17. By statutory responsibility you really meant
responsibility within your own job remit, within your own terms
of reference. I do not think you meant by parliamentary statute
did you?
(Sir Robert May) This is one of my weaknesses, knowing
all these nuts and bolts. I should like to follow up on that.
I am not at all sure that some of these responsibilities, informally
previously vested in the Chief Scientist, did not become statutorily
formal in the aftermath of the White Paper and the creation of
OST. I simply do not know. May I follow up on that?
18. I do not know either. I am asking the question
out of innocence.
(Sir Robert May) A jolly good question. Before I go
tossing around words like statutory in this loose way it would
be a good idea if I found it out.
19. You will write and let us know?
(Sir Robert May) Yes.
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