Annex
INTERACTIONS WITH POST 1995-2000
1. By informal agreement, one of the Lords seats
on the POST Board is taken by the Chairman of the Committee or
his nominee. (Another is nominated by the Library and Computers
Sub-Committee.)
2. The Director of POST receives selected
Committee papers, and has a standing invitation to attend meetings
at which the Committee is to discuss future work. He has accompanied
Committee members and staff on visits.
3. The Committee has used POST reports as
starting points for inquiries (Nuclear Waste 1998, Non-Food Crops
1999).
4. The Committee's Specialist Assistant
has contributed to writing a POST report which was intended to
pave the way for a Committee inquiry (Nuclear Waste 1998).
5. A note by Committee staff, updating a
previous POST report for the purposes of a Committee inquiry,
has been published by POST as a Note (Non-Food Crops 1999).
6. POST has produced a Note updating a previous
POST report, at the Committee's request (Cannabis 1998).
7. The Director of POST has given the Committee
an informal briefing at the start of an inquiry (Information Superhighway
1995, Cannabis 1998, Non-Food Crops 1999).
8. The Committee and POST have co-funded
a research project (Science and Society/Science in the Media 2000).
The research fed into a Committee inquiry, and the results were
published as a POST report.
9. POST has organised, through the Hansard
Society, an Internet dialogue which was related, in both topic
and process, to a Committee inquiry (Science & Society/Women
in SET 2000). The findings were submitted as evidence to the Committee,
and subsequently published by POST.
10. In 1999 a member of POST staff was of
great assistance in organising Committee visits to the USA and
Denmark. This he was able to do because his receipt of a Churchill
Fellowship had enabled him to be based in these countries for
a period of time before the Committee visited.
11. In 1994 (before the period under review,
but noted here for completeness) a POST Westminster Fellow covered
the post of Specialist Assistant to the Committee for three months
while the postholder took maternity leave.
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