Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1057-1059)
PROFESSOR SIR
GORDON CONWAY
KCMG, PROFESSOR PAUL
WILES AND
PROFESSOR FRANK
KELLY
7 JUNE 2006
Q1057 Chairman: Could we very much welcome
Professor Sir Gordon Conway, Chief Scientific Adviser, at the
Department for International Development, Professor Frank Kelly,
Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Transport and Professor
Paul Wiles, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office. I would
like to start questions with you, Professor Kelly. How often do
you meet your secretary of state or the permanent secretary?
Professor Kelly: I have had an
hour and a half's meeting with the secretary of state in the time
that he has been in the job so far, the current one. Looking back
over the three years that I have been the Department's Chief Scientific
Adviser I suppose I have seen the secretary of state in one role
or another maybe every three weeks, something like that. I attend
each of the board meetings once a month; I spend maybe three or
four hours with the permanent secretary and the DGs and I probably
meet the permanent secretary once a month outside of that.
Q1058 Chairman: When Norman Glass
came before us a couple of weeks ago, what he said to us was the
old Civil Service phrase that eggheads and boffins should be on
tap and not on top is very much alive and well. What I am trying
to get at with all three of you really is how embedded are you
actually in the policy making of your departments or are you there
simple to give advice when it is called upon?
Professor Kelly: I think that
is a very interesting question. I can describe my own experience.
I have been Chief Scientific Adviser for three years, 50%. So
that is not a long time and you can make your own judgment about
how much confidence to put in my experience. My experience was
that at the beginning, the first six months or so, it was pretty
important for me to be at the meetings in order to establish a
relationship with the ministers. After that it was just a lot
easier. The private office had got the idea that they should let
me know this or that, I could contact them and so it became a
lot easier after that first six months.
Q1059 Chairman: You feel you are
embedded into that system.
Professor Kelly: There are always
issues concerned with information, concerned with who knows what,
but I did not feel in any sense excluded, no.
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