Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1100-1119)
PROFESSOR SIR
GORDON CONWAY
KCMG, PROFESSOR PAUL
WILES AND
PROFESSOR FRANK
KELLY
7 JUNE 2006
Q1100 Chairman: The short answer
from Gordon and Frank is that you are not aware of these Guidelines.
Professor Kelly: I am aware of
them. They set a context rather like the context that a contract
sets in commercial terms. Something is going wrong when you try
to read the contract. What should happen is that you can fall
back on it but things are going wrong if you have to fall back
on it.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: I
think it is important to understand that government departments
are very different. The Department for International Development
is not like the Home Office or like Defra; it has a quite different
role. My understanding of the way in which evidence is used is
that in general it conforms with those Guidelines which are the
responsibility of the permanent secretary. The way in which in
practice we make sure that evidence gets into what we do and help
governments in developing countries look at evidence—which
in some ways is the most important role we have—is a rather
different approach from what other government departments will
have.
Q1101 Margaret Moran: Could you give
us a concrete example, Professor Wiles, of how your science and
innovation strategy is actually improving the Department's handling
of scientific evidence?
Professor Wiles: Until comparatively
recently the Home Office had quite a large group of scientists
but they were known as the Police Scientific Development Branch.
They were very good; they did a lot of very important work to
support practical policing, they also did work for the security
service and some work for the Department of Transport as well.
When I became CSA the problem was that there was no equivalent
support for other areas of the Home Office and important though
policing is it is one aspect of the Home Office. One of the things
that we have been doing over the last eighteen months—you
know this because we also renamed the Police Scientific Development
Branch as the Home Office Scientific Development Branch—is
try to make sure that equivalent scientific support was there
for the Immigration and Nationality Directorate and for the National
Offender Management Service, to make sure that the right kind
of support and advice was there. That is an on-going project;
it is something we are still working on and there are of course
significant scientifically based or scientifically dependent projects
as you are aware happening outside of the policing area and we
need to make sure we get that science right. One of the things
that has involved is changing the skills mix within the Home Office
science base to make sure it was capable of handling that different
area. We have recently recruited a chief biometric adviser; we
have recently recruited from MOD a colleague who has expertise
in CBRN and so on. We have been changing that skills base within
the Home Office Scientific Development Branch in order to support
a full range of the Home Office group activities.
Q1102 Margaret Moran: Professor Conway,
we are still waiting for your strategy around this. When is it
coming and why is taking so long?
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: The
reason why we have put it off is to wait for the white paper because
the white paper is what we have been working on and it is the
commitments that will appear in the white paper which will determine
what we write in the strategy. That is the reason for it. We are
aiming for the strategy to be out in about November and that will
be preceded by a document that I have been producing over the
last year which is basically a review of the role of science and
technology in development. It is a major review of all the aspects
of science and technology as they relate to development: Millennium
Development Goals, economic growth, sustainability, the resilience
issues, natural resources, governance, science and technology
capacity building, intelligent use of science. It is a major piece
of work that I have been engaged on for the last year. That will
come out with luck in September/October and then the strategy
will come out in November.
Q1103 Margaret Moran: A lot of the
issues you are addressing require cross-departmental cooperation.
How do you deal with that? Do you meet together? Do you peer review
each other's agendas and science strategies? How does that work?
Professor Kelly: I have spent
a bit of time on the Ministry of Defence review of their alignment
and capability and I have found very helpful comments from other
chief scientific advisers on things. We are all very busy so it
is hard to set it up in a very formal way, but the phone call
or the meeting and the specific question seems to me to be the
most effective way to get help from my colleagues.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: I
can give you two examples. The big one is climate change. We work
very closely with Defra. I represented the UK delegation at the
Commission for Sustainable Development two weeks ago and I was
representative of both the DFID and Defra components. It was the
same in Ethiopia about a month ago on the Global Climate Observation
System where I had both Defra and DFID staff and I was leading
that. Another example is the Department for Education and Skills;
we have been working with them on the issue of Higher Education
in Africa. I suppose we have had some contact with most government
departments one way or the other in terms of science.
Q1104 Margaret Moran: In terms of
horizon scanning we have heard some evidence that horizon scanning
is not well developed within this area. Can each of you very briefly
give one example of where you have been using a horizon scanning
exercise in policy development and indicate whether that was just
a one off or whether that is routine within your department?
Professor Wiles: We have long
done and published projections—note projections, not predictions—of
prison populations and yes, those projections of future prison
population, assuming current trends were to continue, are central
to policy making in that area.
Q1105 Chairman: I think we ought
to know how you use it.
Professor Wiles: If you look at
those projections—as I say they are published, they are
on the website so they are available for everyone to look at—what
they are indicating is, as I think everybody knows and indeed
it is those projections which have often been behind the press
reports, that we have a problem with the prison population at
the moment. We are heading towards capacity and therefore we need
to do things to handle that situation. Those projections have
been absolutely essential to those debates about what is the problem
and what do we need to do about it. I do not think there can be
much doubt about the importance of those in that area of policy
making. They are precisely horizon scanning.
Q1106 Margaret Moran: You are giving
us one example from one part of the Home Office.
Professor Wiles: Do you want some
other examples?
Q1107 Margaret Moran: Could one argue
that the immigration policy, for example, has been dealt with
in a similar way?
Professor Wiles: I created a year
ago a small central intelligence hub within my core economic and
operational research group to work partly with Sir David's central
horizon scanning team to do horizon scanning. That has been doing
that. I think the issue we have—it is common not just within
government but within commercial organisations—is that doing
horizon scanning is one thing, getting an organisation to actually
lift its head from immediate problems and think 10 or 20 years
ahead and use that horizon scanning is sometimes a challenge.
Q1108 Chairman: Are you saying it
is not happening?
Professor Wiles: No, I am not
saying it is not happening, I am saying it is a challenge. I am
saying that it is happening to some extent; it is still not happening
in my view sufficiently and it is something I regard as a challenge.
I regard it as something that I have to try to get the Department
to do. You can imagine, particularly at the moment in the Home
Office, it is difficult to get the Department to take its gaze
above the immediate crises it has to deal with and say, "Yes,
all very well, but in the long run the way to do that is to be
able to look further ahead, understand the kinds of risks that
lay in the future and think about how you are going to manage
them." It is not easy but it is something we have to do.
Professor Kelly: In Transport
a major horizon scanning exercise was conducted by the Foresight
group, the Intelligent Infrastructure systems project. The Department
for Transport was involved with that and we have used, for example,
the scenarios for what the future might look like in thirty or
fifty years' time. They were radically different scenarios from
each other and from what might be the man in the street's expectation
of the future. We have used them as a basis for strategy group
meetings within the Department and in different units within the
Department, most recently rail. Rail has been using scenarios
developed from these to look out. They have decisions to make
about infrastructure which are long term decisions; they need
to think along these timescales.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: Horizon
scanning takes many different forms in DFID again. For example,
with individual countries when they are helping them to develop
their poverty reduction strategy plans which are the basis for
long term funding, effectively that is a horizon scanning for
the future of that country. We have just done it for Malawi, for
example, and Tanzania. That is a kind of horizon scanning but
it does not fall within the narrow definition. I think we are
looking within DFID about how we will do more horizon scanning
into the future and in particular I want to work more closely
with the new chief economic adviser who has only come on board
a few months ago. I think we have ideas about how we might together—which
would be much more effective—get some more horizon scanning
going. That is being looked at within the organisational review
that is going on within DFID.
Q1109 Bob Spink: Does DFID accept
that with the increased occurrence of extreme weather events and
natural disasters it may be that the way in which DFID operates
in the future will change? Are you taking account of that in planning
how aid will be distributed in years to come?
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: We
have a major programme in climate change in which I am heavily
involved. We have had meetings and conferences and so on around
the world. Quite specifically we are piloting some climate change
screening. We are starting a pilot in Bangladesh and that will
attempt to look at the impact of climate change on specific aid
investments. It is a policy for the EU but we are going to pilot
one of these for the EU as a whole and clearly that is going to
be very important. Putting it very crudely, if you build a bridge
and you have built the bridge according to a one in a hundred
year flood you may have to revise that in the future because the
one in a hundred year flood may be a one in fifty year flood.
That is the kind of question we are going to have to tackle.
Q1110 Margaret Moran: Do you each
control your departmental budgets for commissioning research?
If not, do you think you should or should there be ring fenced
research council funding for that purpose?
Professor Kelly: No, I do not
think I should.
Q1111 Chairman: You do not think
you should have your own research fund?
Professor Kelly: I have some of
my own research fund but do I control the budget, no. The budged
is devolved out to the units. There is a part of it which is within
my unit but it is not the overall budget.
Q1112 Chairman: I think one of the
areas that we are anxious to get a handle on is that it is all
right having a government policy about saying we must have policy
based on good evidence and scientific evidence should feed into
that, and yet there seems to be a situation whereby the chief
scientific advisers have been appointed but do not have independent
research funds in order to be able to carry out the sort of research
that is necessary in order to inform the policy. Do you feel that
you should have separate budgets? Do you think the Research Council
should have ring-fenced budgets which you can tap into? Or is
there some better way of actually being able to underpin the research
you need?
Professor Kelly: It is difficult
to get good research and I have not myself found that the lack
of money is the most severe constraint. For example, in the negotiation
with research councils about how to get from the ESRC more money
into transport related economic and social research, in that conversation
money is not the issue. It is attempting to define the problem
so it attracts the very best academics.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: The
main research is funded by the central research department within
DFID but there is also research funded by the policy division
and of course each of the individual country offices will fund
research. I can spend a small pot of money on research if I wish
to do so but this has not arisen so far. It might be that that
ought to grow in the future but at the moment it has not arisen.
We have call down contracts for resource centres in various areas
so that if we want something done quickly we can go and get it
done. For example on climate change I only have to call the CEOs
at the Natural Environment Research Council and say that we have
a certain issue and do they know of anybody who can give advice
on it and you get it.
Professor Wiles: No, I do not
control the research budgets in the Home Office. There is an interesting
tension here that I think there is not a straightforward answer.
I think it is actually important that the research that is done
in the Home Office is the research that will drive future policy
or delivery and as a result of that what we have done in the Home
Office is to leave the budgets with those that are responsible
for the policy and delivery so that they, as it were, are commissioning
the research. Of course you could argue—I think it is implicit
in your question—that that is all very well but it means
that you, as CSA, cannot directly influence what is being done
and that is true. The answer is that I have to get in there and
mix it and talk to people about what kind of research I think
is needed and why. I am genuinely ambivalent on this one. In some
senses like any other scientist I would love to have the whole
budget because then I could do exactly what I wanted, but I can
actually also see that there would be problems if that were the
case and I can see strengths in the way we do it. For example,
before any social research is done in the Home Office we have
what we call a triple key approach. A senior policy official at
director level or above has to say they want the research, why
they want it and what they are going to do when they get it. I
have to say, as CSA, the research can be done to a quality that
will answer the question and then a minister has to say, "Yes,
that research should be done". Unless all three keys are
in the lock research in the Home Office does not occur.
Q1113 Margaret Moran: We have heard
evidence, particularly on drug policy, that research is not being
done at all.
Professor Wiles: That is nonsense;
I will talk to you about that later on.
Professor Kelly: I, as Chief Scientific
Adviser, and also the Chief Economist/Analyst have a scrutiny
function, so that an evidence and research policy framework and
the research that is funded by each unit has to go through a process
of scrutiny. Quality pressure from the chief analyst and chief
scientific adviser is important.
Q1114 Mr Newmark: I want to turn
now to risk uncertainty and how that is communicated both internally
within departments and externally to the public. How well is scientific
uncertainty being handled generally in terms of policy making?
Professor Kelly: Transport has
it relatively easy in terms of scientific uncertainty. Many, many
of the risk aspects in Transport are those that are well measured
and quantified: road deaths, railway deaths. There are large numbers,
sadly, in these areas and it is a statistical problem rather than
a problem of gross scientific uncertainty. Then there are other
areas concerned with the evolution of technology, how rapidly
technologies are evolving and what the impact of that will be
on mechanisms for road user charging or mechanisms for train signalling,
where the issue is how to set up a separation, what is it the
Government should do and what is it that should be left to the
market, the market being able to evolve rapidly as new technologies
are adopted by society. I think Transport has it relatively easy,
relative to other departments where there may be gross scientific
uncertainties.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: In
the big issues that I have been dealing with—tsunamis, avian
flu, climate change—the issues of risk and uncertainty are
huge. It is a real challenge to how you communicate the nature
of the risk and the uncertainty and you have to be honest but
you also have to be forceful. Some of them are extremely difficult.
If you take the Sunda Shelf off the coast of Sumatra that is going
to go, there is going to be another huge quake and a tsunami any
time between tonight and fifty years from now. That is what you
say but there is no evidence you can get at the moment to narrow
that possibility. You have to try to convey that in the form that
says, "Look, you must put in much better measures to actually
prevent the damage being greater than it otherwise is going to
be." That is what you tend to do.
Q1115 Mr Newmark: Yes, but I want
to focus on the communication of that risk. When that risk is
communicated to ministers is that filtered through advisers who
have no scientific background or is there direct communication
through those who have the science and understanding to the minister
who is handling that situation?
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: For
example in my case I will produce two or three page briefing notes
on tsunamis or climate change or avian flu directly to the secretary
of state. He will see them and look at them. In fact I have sat
down with him and shown him the scenario for avian flu and tsunamis.
Q1116 Mr Newmark: So in your experience
there is no filtered mechanism between you and the minister?
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: No,
not at all.
Q1117 Chairman: Sir David King does
not filter it, neither does the permanent secretary.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: No.
Obviously in many cases I am talking to the permanent secretary
about this but in terms of those big issues I am dealing directly
with the secretary of state. It is a tactic, if you like, because
I think the most important thing we have to get within our departments
is the confidence of the political leaders. We have to get to
the point at which they trust us in what we are saying. They know
that we are not being extremists on the one hand; they know we
are not being too cautious on the other. We are presenting things
forcefully and clearly as they are.
Q1118 Mr Newmark: I hear what you
are saying, but another way of looking at it is to explain that
risk again to the outside world. It comes from you, it goes to
the minister and you say there is no filter there. In communicating
from government as a whole to the outside world unfortunately
there are things out of your control such as the media and the
media may well grasp onto something which in your analysis might
be a tiny risk but it may well be blown out of all proportion
as a disaster that is imminent.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway: In
my particular case the audience I am interested in is governments
in developing countries when I travel to a developing country.
For example when I was in Malawi recently we had dinner with three
ministers and we talked to them about these issues. I have been
speaking on climate change in about four or five different countries.
I have had half hour interviews on television in those countries
and you adopt exactly the same strategy as for the secretary of
state. You lay it out honestly, forcefully and with the caveats
that need to be there. You have to get people to accept that this
is something really serious. On the one hand you are trying to
be forceful but equally you must not be economical with the truth.
Professor Wiles: I think the point
about understanding more broadly out of the department is a difficult
one. I am smiling slightly because Richard Ford from The Times
is sat over there and he and I once a year sit down and I try
to persuade him and his colleagues what is happening to crime
in this country. It took me a long time to get the press to both
accept and report that crime was actually going down. There was
a great deal of scepticism when that first started happening.
I am glad to say now that most of the press usually manage to
say something like, "Overall crime is going down but . .
." and then go onto something else, but at least we have
that broad picture. Richard knows that over five years that has
been a kind of struggle. There are some real difficulties there.
I am not blaming the journalists or the press; I think there is
a problem. There is a problem because, as we know, we do tend
to have a rather weak scientific and numeracy culture in this
country which does not help. The simple thing that I have struggled
to get across so far as crime is concerned is that what we are
publishing are national crime rates. However, crime victimisation
is heavily skewed in its distribution both socially and geographically
and therefore those national risks grossly over-estimate the risks
for the majority of people. That seems to me a fairly simple point
about distribution. Have I managed to get any of the press yet
to report that? No. There is a constant struggle I think to try
to get understandings of risk and probability.
Q1119 Mr Newmark: It is the same
issue with avian flu.
Professor Wiles: Absolutely.
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