CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 900-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

 

 

SCIENTIFIC ADVICE, RISK AND EVIDENCE:

HOW GOVERNMENT HANDLES THEM

 

 

Wednesday 15 February 2006

PROFESSOR SIR DAVID KING and MS SUE DUNCAN

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 106

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

 

1. This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.

 

2. The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course.

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Science and Technology Committee

on Wednesday 15 February 2006

Members present

Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair

Adam Afriyie

Mr Jim Devine

Dr Evan Harris

Dr Brian Iddon

Mr Brooks Newmark

Dr Desmond Turner

________________

Witnesses: Professor Sir David King, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, and Ms Sue Duncan, Chief Government Social Researcher, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman: Good morning, Sir David, good morning, Ms Duncan. Welcome to you both and could I welcome a packed gallery this morning to hear evidence from the Government Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Government Social Researcher. Now, would it be possible, Sir David, if you could start by, each of you, just saying briefly what your roles are, so the Committee is clear as to what they are.

Professor Sir David King: The Chief Scientific Adviser's role is to advise the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on all matters related to science, whether it is science policy in terms of innovation and wealth-creation, science policy in dealing with risks or science policy dealing with opportunities. I also run the Office of Science and Technology and the Office currently has a staff of around 150 people. One section of the Office deals with the science and engineering budget, which is currently around £3 billion, and that goes to the research councils. The other section is the trans-departmental science and technology section, which provides me with the back-up in most of that function.

Ms Duncan: My role is rather more modest. My principal role is to set standards for the Government Social Research Service in areas of professional and ethical practice and to provide the resources to do that, so we issue guidance and provide training and that sort of thing. I have no role specifically in advising ministers; that is done via departmental experts.

Q2 Chairman: So is Sir David your direct line manager?

Ms Duncan: No, my direct line manager is Professor Sir Nick Stern, who is the Chief Economist within the Treasury. I am just in the process of transition of moving from the Cabinet Office to the Treasury, so I report to Nick Stern.

Q3 Chairman: So what is the relationship between your two roles then?

Ms Duncan: I have close links with OST and I have regular meetings with Sir David's staff ---

Q4 Chairman: Weekly?

Ms Duncan: Monthly, probably about that. I am also a member of the Chief Scientist's Advisory Committee, so that is a very good place to link with the departmental chief scientists and I feed into that for the social sciences.

Q5 Chairman: Is there an example of where you have worked together on a policy area, crossing between social science and technology policy?

Professor Sir David King: I have been very keen, since taking this post, to take science out of the box, in other words, to see that what we normally call 'science' is fully integrated with the entire knowledge base, so remove the boundaries. I am working closely with social sciences, economists, even arts and humanities where it seems appropriate, right across the board. It is important, for example, to note that we now fund the research councils all the way from arts and humanities to particle physics, so integrating the knowledge base is really what I am trying to do. Therefore, in terms of the Chief Scientific Adviser's Committee that Sue has referred to, we do have science advisers from all government departments who include several social scientists, so we do try and co-ordinate the whole patch.

Q6 Chairman: One of the queries that has been made to us, Sir David, is that, whilst you frequently speak on matters of what I would call 'hard science' or 'environmental science', we have never heard you speak much on social science in terms of natural and social science. We wondered whether that was because you saw that as a lesser part of your role or is that an unfair criticism because you looked hurt then?

Professor Sir David King: Thank you, I am glad my expression was so clear! Yes, I do feel hurt by that! For example, you mentioned the environmental issues and that is only one small part of the advice that I give, but nevertheless the environmental advice is given with a very clear input from social and economic experts. For example, I run the Government's Foresight Programme and in each of the Foresight programmes, whether it is on cyber-security, which we have done, or on flood and coastal defence management, we have engaged social scientists, economists and the biological and physical scientists whom you might more clearly expect to see there.

Ms Duncan: Perhaps I could give an example which draws on one of your case studies, identity cards, where a lot of the research obviously falls on Sir David's side of the house, but that work was supported by social research done within the Home Office to look at the acceptability of introducing that scheme and to gauge public attitudes.

Professor Sir David King: The Home Office Chief Scientific Adviser himself, Paul Wiles, is a social scientist and he is part of my inner group of chief scientific advisers.

Q7 Chairman: So are you responsible then for ensuring the quality of social science research and promoting it across government? I am still trying to get a handle on what your role is.

Ms Duncan: Unlike the natural sciences, the central heads for social sciences are separate and there is no equivalent chief social scientist, so I am the central head of profession for social research. Karen Dunnell is the National Statistician and head of profession for statisticians, and the head of profession for the economists is Sir Nicholas Stern, so there is no equivalent on the social science side for Sir David's role. I work closely with my opposite numbers on the other social science side and obviously -----

Q8 Chairman: Do you think that is a weakness in scientific advice to government, that there is not the equivalent of Sir David in the social science area?

Ms Duncan: I am not sure.

Q9 Chairman: You can be honest.

Ms Duncan: Yes, absolutely. I am not sure that it is a weakness. It would be if we did not work closely together and I think in the last few years we have been putting a lot more effort into co-ordinating across the social sciences. I think that is crucial and it has actually shown itself in the way that social science analysis and advice on policy is actually becoming more co-ordinated, and all of us, as central heads, have put a lot of work into that.

Professor Sir David King: I think your questioning of that in a way ignores my previous answer, if I may say, which is that the Chief Scientific Adviser incorporates social sciences into the activities. For example, we are going into government departments to review the quality of the evidence-based policy advice system, and Sue has assisted me in that process in going into government departments so that, when we look at the evidence-based advice, we are looking right across the board at the R&D base used in those departments, in the physical sciences, biological sciences, medical sciences, social sciences and economic sciences, so we are looking across the patch.

Q10 Chairman: Do you feel that the quality of that link between social science research and policy is weak?

Professor Sir David King: I think we could always improve. I think that a very large part of the function of my office is to see that we are continually challenging the process to improve, so I do not believe that we have arrived at a good position, but we are certainly turning things around.

Ms Duncan: Would it be helpful if I mentioned some of the things that we are doing to strengthen that link between social sciences and policy?

Q11 Chairman: It would, yes.

Ms Duncan: The Professional Skills for Government initiative, which is about equipping all civil servants with skills to do their jobs properly, one of the core skills for policy-makers is that they have expertise in using the research and analysis and we are working with our social science colleagues to provide training. There is also the Co-ordination of Research and Analysis Group which actually brings social science heads together with policy-makers in an open dialogue, and I think those sorts of issues are actually strengthening how we work to feed into policy.

Q12 Dr Iddon: Why is there not an equivalent for the natural and physical sciences, indeed technology as well, that would match the Government Social Research Service, the Government Economic Service, the Government Statistical Service and the Government Operational Research Service? There does not appear to be a government organisation for the natural and physical sciences and technology.

Professor Sir David King: Unless you want to call the Office of Science and Technology precisely that. The Office funds the science base in our university sector, the Office reviews the quality of science, as I have just said, in every government department, and, through the chief scientific advisers, I am trying to pull the evidence base in the sciences across the patch together, so I think that is the very function of the Office of Science and Technology.

Q13 Dr Iddon: But it is embedded, David, in a particular state department rather than being detached from all the state departments with an umbrella government organisation, as all the rest are. Do you think that is a disadvantage, being attached to the DTI?

Professor Sir David King: The Office of Science and Technology was placed in the DTI some years ago with an effort to focus on the innovation and wealth-creation agenda from within the science base, and that is the rationale behind it. I believe there is much work still to be done. We have a tremendous opportunity. There is a tremendous platform from the science base today with probably the highest density of SME clusters emerging from our universities in the world, and I see that as a massive opportunity for new wealth-creation in the UK. There is still a job to be done there, but your question, Brian, is a good one because the role of the Chief Scientific Adviser is to report to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and yet my office is in the DTI. I think that tension exists and I feel it many days of the week.

Q14 Dr Turner: I remember, at least I think I remember, in my youth that there was a body called the 'Scientific Civil Service'. Whatever happened to it? Why did it disappear and do you think it really was expendable?

Professor Sir David King: The Scientific Civil Service, I think, served a very good purpose and at the same time I think it developed a glass ceiling in the sense that promotion to higher managerial positions within the Service appeared to be blocked to those who were going into the Scientific Civil Service. Therefore, I think many good people decided not to give themselves that label so that they would have the opportunity of promotion to the top. I am simply giving you the reasons why I believe the Scientific Civil Service notion was taken away. I am now operating as head of profession for science and engineering within government and we are trying to strengthen that role again. What is very important, just as a follow-up to your point, is to note that the privatisation of government laboratories, such as the Laboratory for the Government Chemist, the LGC, means that we are losing scientific expertise from within the Civil Service, so the opportunity for people to bubble up into top positions in the Civil Service with a hard science training is being reduced as this happens. It is an unintended consequence, if you like, of the privatisation. Now, we are trying to correct that through this role as head of profession.

Q15 Dr Turner: Having said that about the Laboratory for the Government Chemist, did you have any input into the discussions on the future of the Forensic Science Service because the same issues apply?

Professor Sir David King: The same issues apply and, as a matter of fact, the LGC does do forensic work for the Home Office. Your question is a very direct one and the answer is, no I was not heavily involved in that.

Q16 Dr Iddon: Perhaps I can go back to our original discussion about your position having been moved from the Cabinet Office, where it was originally started, up to the DTI and that you are embedded there. I agree with your statement, that it is a good thing to focus on knowledge transfer and getting science and technology moving there to the aid of the country, but do you think that the focus on that and the fact that you are embedded in that single state department detracts from some of the other activities that we would expect the Government Chief Scientist to be involved in?

Professor Sir David King: I think, to be honest, this has not been a major problem for me probably because of the visibility I was given for the foot and mouth disease epidemic. In other words, I think it is recognised in all departments that I serve this super-departmental role, that I am not tied within the DTI, but I report to the Prime Minister. I think that is now widely recognised, so I do not think that I personally find difficulties arising from that.

Q17 Chairman: Would you prefer to be in the Cabinet Office rather than the DTI?

Professor Sir David King: That is a very big question.

Q18 Chairman: Could you give me a little answer - yes or no?

Professor Sir David King: I do not want to give a simple yes or no, and perhaps I may just slightly elaborate. This would probably mean taking all 150 of us into the Cabinet Office, and Sir Gus O'Donnell is very keen to get the Cabinet Office down to be a lean, mean machine, so he is not keen to take on such a big number of civil servants into the Cabinet Office. We also carry this large budget, £3 billion, so I think, for both those reasons, it is not seen by the Civil Service to be appropriate.

Q19 Dr Iddon: That has probably killed my question which is directed to Sue Duncan and that is: do you agree that moving the Government Social Research Service from the Cabinet Office to the Treasury was a good thing?

Ms Duncan: Yes, it is actually a move that I very much welcome. It has happened as part of Sir Gus O'Donnell's review of Cabinet Office functions, but, for the Government Social Research Service, it means that we will both be co-located with the professional unit for the Government Economic Service, so it encourages closer working there, and it also means that we are in the department that leads on the spending reviews, which draw heavily on government-generated research and evidence, and it is actually an opportunity for me to have a stronger input into that process. I have already discussed that in a preliminary way with both Professor Stern and with the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, and that is something I will be looking to develop when I move.

Q20 Dr Iddon: I think your answer reflects a worry that I have and the question, therefore, is: by being embedded in the Treasury, you obviously spend a lot of your time, as you have just described, on Treasury-related matters.

Ms Duncan: Yes.

Q21 Dr Iddon: Does that not detract from the amount of time you should be spending on the other major state departments?

Ms Duncan: I agree that that is a risk in my move to the Treasury, but it is pretty clear that that is not the intention and still my primary function is to be the head of the Government Social Research service and to ensure standards and quality both of its staff and the work that it does, but that is certainly something that I will have to be discussing with my new line manager when the move actually takes place.

Q22 Chairman: In terms of your role as independent Chief Scientific Adviser principally to the Prime Minister and the Government, is there not a contradiction between that role and then managing what is basically a very significant department? Would it not be better not to have that responsibility and just purely to have the responsibility of being an independent adviser to the Prime Minister and the Government?

Professor Sir David King: In my role as independent adviser, it is absolutely critical that I have the support that I have and, as a matter of fact, I think the support is pretty minimal. We are a lean, mean machine in the Office of Science and Technology. I, for example, could list for you the various committees that I operate with and through, a number of which I chair. If you take one of them, for example, the Global Science and Innovation Forum, this forum is the only forum that brings together the Foreign Office, UK Trade and Industry, DTI, Defra, the Royal Society, the research councils and the British Council to co-ordinate our approach to foreign policy, covering the whole area of science and technology. That in itself is a pretty good, challenging job and, engaging in that process, I make many trips abroad in dealing with all of our bilateral arrangements with other countries, and all of our negotiations with Brussels, for example, on the Framework Programme take place through my office, so that is just on the international scene. We have the equivalent in the trans-departmental science and technology section, dealing with science in government. The review process I have described is a big process. Each review takes about six months. When you go into a government department, so there is a lot of work to be done. I think it would be wrong to think that my advice is given from, if you like, the top of my head as a scientist. For example, if there is an issue, such as avian flu, I will make sure that the leading scientists give me a full briefing on avian flu so that I am fully informed when I go in to give my advice. Now, the process of drawing those people together requires an office to provide the back-up.

Q23 Dr Turner: What is your relationship with the chief scientific advisers of government departments, at least those government departments that do have chief scientific advisers, and that is another question I want to go back to? Do you see yourself as their boss, their advocate or some kind of counsellor? What is the relationship?

Professor Sir David King: The chief scientific advisers in government departments, we now total nine, including myself, and these chief scientific advisers I am distinguishing, and I think this is in your question, as those people who have been parachuted in as expert scientists from the university community or from industry. These people are responsible to their secretary of state for the evidence-based policy advice system in their department. My line of responsibility to the Prime Minister means that, in order to cover the patch across government, I also need the chief scientific advisers to report to me, but that is very much a dotted line; their direct line is to the secretary of state in their department. I think the relationship is not only a good one, it is an absolutely critically important relationship because, taking all the chief scientific advisers together, we do cross the patch. I mentioned Paul Wiles, who is a social scientist, and Frank Kelly is a mathematician and Howard Doulton is a biological scientist, so we cover the expertise across the wide sciences. Having that capability for Paul Wyles, for example, in the Home Office to call on that other expertise amongst the chief scientific advisers, I think, is important to all of us.

Q24 Dr Turner: But there have been occasions, and you have already mentioned foot and mouth which clearly was an occasion, and we can talk about it because MAFF does not exist anymore, where I suspect, looking at it from the outside, that you felt that you had a need in your role as Chief Scientific Adviser to intervene. Was that the case?

Professor Sir David King: Absolutely. In that situation, like everyone else, I was reading the papers about the development of the epidemic and I was watching it grow exponentially. John Krebbs and I drew together a group of scientists who were involved in epidemiological modelling, virologists and veterinary scientists, and we began modelling the epidemic and it was very clear from our modelling that the control processes in place at that time were not going to bring the epidemic under control. From the modelling, we came up with a new control procedure and this was then backed by the Prime Minister. I think this is an example where challenge is important and, if you take a current example, it is on avian flu and the potential for a human flu pandemic, so again my role is to see that challenge occurs to government departments to see that whatever policies are being developed are fully robust and can take that scientific challenge.

Q25 Dr Turner: Are you now confident that all the scientific departments that do have CSAs in them now have the in-house expertise to be able to respond to such challenges that could occur unforeseeably in any department? Have they now got it? Are you confident?

Professor Sir David King: No.

Q26 Dr Turner: So you think there is work to be done?

Professor Sir David King: Yes. That is a very good question and of course I think there is an enormous amount of work still to be done. I think we have moved a long way, but this is a bit of a tanker that needs turning to get a full understanding of what the strength of scientific knowledge can bring to the evidence-based system.

Q27 Dr Iddon: I have been putting down a series of questions to the major state departments along the lines of secondments into the departments. I have been asking the departments, "Of all the secondments you are making into the department", and there are a lot of them in some cases, "how much scientific and technological expertise are you importing into your department?" Amazingly, the answers coming back, though I have not had a complete set of answers yet, but two or three answers are the same, that they do not measure that kind of thing. Do you find that astonishing that, when staff are seconded from other areas of the country into state departments, they do not measure how much technology and scientific expertise they are importing?

Professor Sir David King: I am not surprised at your discovering this, I am not surprised at all. It is a problem, but at the same time I think what have got to recognise is that the science advisory system within government only works by going out for expert information outside of government. There is within several departments, and Defra would be one, the MoD another, an enormous amount of scientific knowledge base within the department, but even there they are strengthened by going out to be challenged by the science base outside. Therefore, I think we can manage the process, despite what you are saying, by getting across the idea that it is seeking external scientific advice that is absolutely crucial, and here I mean social science as well.

Q28 Dr Turner: Do you have a view on the desirability of the three government departments who do not have chief scientific advisers? Do you think they should have chief scientific advisers or at least, in the case of the Treasury, perhaps technological advisers? We might not then have some of the problems that we have with the Revenue and tax credits if they had, for instance.

Professor Sir David King: After the foot and mouth disease epidemic, the Prime Minister asked me to see that each government department appointed a chief scientific adviser so that the quality of advice could be improved. He asked me to review the quality of advice in each government department on a regular basis and to see that each department had a science and innovation unit, and we are delivering on that. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport, for example, I think was somewhat resistant to the idea that they needed a chief scientist, but they are now in the process of appointing one. I think there have been battles on each occasion really.

Q29 Dr Iddon: I find it surprising that the Department for Education and Skills, which obviously has a very broad scientific and technological base, does not have a chief scientific adviser. Have you put any pressure on that Department to encourage them to appoint somebody?

Professor Sir David King: Professor Alan Wilson does play a key role in DfES, so, although he is not officially a chief scientific adviser, I think he does play that role reasonably well. Sue, do you know exactly what his title is?

Ms Duncan: No.

Chairman: Director General of Higher Education.

Q30 Dr Turner: Sue, what part do you play, as a sociologist, in overseeing the use in your science of the evidence base in government departments, like obviously the DWP and the Department of Health?

Ms Duncan: Like Sir David's network of chief scientific advisers, I have a network of the most senior social researchers within each government department. They have various titles, but it is usually something like 'Chief Research Officer' or 'Chief Social Researcher', something like that. They are my main route through to departments and they are the people to whom I issue advice and guidance, written advice and guidance, and they, in their turn, come to me if they have specific problems, which they cannot take up themselves and then I can take them up on their behalf. I have regular meetings with my heads of profession, I also have a sub-group of my heads of profession, which is called the 'GSR Strategy Board', and we together set the strategy for the Government Social Research service. Those senior researchers within departments are themselves responsible for the quality of research within their departments. I get called in if they cannot deal with things themselves.

Q31 Chairman: Are you happy with the quality that is coming out?

Ms Duncan: Of research?

Q32 Chairman: Of research.

Ms Duncan: In some areas the quality is very good. In other areas we need to address that.

Q33 Chairman: Would you like to say an area where you need to address it?

Ms Duncan: I think one of the problems that we face is that, in the last five or ten years, the Government Social Research service has grown very rapidly which means we have a lot of very inexperienced staff coming into government. They are both at the beginning of their social research careers and they are also not experienced in working in government and giving advice to policy-makers. Therefore, to address this we have established a competency framework which sets out precisely what skills we expect of our staff on recruitment and through the process of their career and we also provide guidance to them in the development of their career.

Q34 Chairman: But you have not answered the question - is there an area where it is particularly weak? It is across the board?

Ms Duncan: Well, there are two ways of answering that. What I was trying to get at was the fact that across departments there are a lot of junior staff. In terms of areas where the research expertise is weak, I would say, for example, the Health and Safety Executive which has only had a chief research officer for two years and they now have eight researchers, but they are still developing that relationship with policy and with the scientists in their department. Defra, in the various government reorganisations, was left with no social researchers. It is now in the process of developing its social research expertise and it now has a chief research officer and a number of researchers and it is still recruiting. Those are two areas where I would say there is still work to be done to make sure they have proper social science representation.

Professor Sir David King: If I can just go back very quickly to Dr Iddon's question, the Chief Scientist from DfES is John Elliott and he serves on the Chief Scientific Adviser's Committee. He is a social scientist.

Q35 Dr Turner: You obviously both get involved in the negotiations around the comprehensive spending reviews. Do you think that your hand would be strengthened if you actually had the Chief Scientific Adviser resident in the Treasury?

Professor Sir David King: We have had very good relationships with the Treasury, so both my personal relationship with the Chief Secretary, successive chief secretaries, and also with the civil servants who were given the task to work with us successively, Harry Bush and John Kingman, the relationships have been very good. Of course you might have noticed that the science budget has increased in successive years over all previous spending reviews, so the answer to your question is that I have no complaints in that area.

Q36 Mr Newmark: Should all departments follow Defra's example of setting up the independent Scientific Advisory Council?

Professor Sir David King: I think in many ways Defra has become an example of best practice for other departments in setting up the Science Advisory Council as an independent body. In placing the Chief Scientific Adviser, Howard Doulton, on top of the evidence-based policy advice system within Defra and in the way that he reports regularly to the Secretary of State, I think that Defra has become, as I say, a model of good practice.

Q37 Mr Newmark: Do you think it should become compulsory or not?

Professor Sir David King: Well, the word 'compulsory' implies that somebody has the power to step into different government departments and wave a wand. I am trying to do that.

Q38 Mr Newmark: In terms of the balance of these committees, do you feel that that is important?

Professor Sir David King: The balance of?

Q39 Mr Newmark: The committees themselves.

Professor Sir David King: The science advisory committees?

Q40 Mr Newmark: Yes.

Professor Sir David King: I think the point with Defra is that it emerged from the MAFF situation, so Defra has been a department very keen to put these things right, so I think the Science Advisory Committee in Defra, the membership, in my view, has been very good, drawn from outside, good people who have been challenging and critical. I think the same is really true of the other advisory committees that have been formed. I should say that the Ministry of Defence has always been very good at this, but the best practice from there has not always been spread around.

Q41 Mr Newmark: Do you feel that lay representation is important on scientific advisory committees?

Professor Sir David King: Perhaps I can answer your question by, for example, looking at the GM Science Review Committee that I formed to advise the Government on the position on GM foods. We had scientists only on that group of 22/23 people. The major NGOs were asked to nominate scientists, so I included scientists nominated by the NGOs on the group, but it seemed to me only right that it should be a group of scientists who examine the scientific evidence and report on that. We did hold all of our meetings, and I think it was about 100 hours of meetings that I chaired on that, all of our meetings were held in public, so anyone could attend, but I do think that this is an issue where science advice needs scientists to hammer it out.

Q42 Mr Newmark: So, from a public policy standpoint, you see no benefit from having lay representation on them because it is science they are concerned with? Is that right?

Professor Sir David King: I think it would depend on the issue, so the Food Standards Agency, for example, which I think has done a tremendously good job since its inception, and again that really rose out of the BSE crisis, the Food Standards Agency does have a broadly drawn group of people on its board and even on its executive board, so I think there are situations where public, as consumer, and public, as lay people, do have a critically important role to play.

Q43 Mr Newmark: What method should be used to determine the weighting given to different kinds of evidence? I know you have alluded to there being certain cases in which pure science is involved and some which are more sort of public policy-oriented, so how does one balance scientific input versus lay input in these sorts of things? Is that important? Should we again be just focusing on really what the scientists have to say?

Professor Sir David King: I think it is very important. I think, for example, if you take the current Energy Review as a very hot topic at the moment, there are views of the scientists that are required as input in terms of the different forms of energy that can contribute to the energy requirement for the next 30, 40 or 50 years, but again the issue of public acceptability is absolutely vital, so I think in those discussions it is very important to engage with the public. So I have set up a Science in Society group in the Office of Science and Technology and within that we have developed something called ScienceWise, and ScienceWise is precisely a process of getting scientists together with lay people to discuss issues such as nanotechnology and whether or not there are issues the lay people see that scientists do not see.

Q44 Mr Newmark: Lay people, though, could be business people or people who are not necessarily pure scientists who can see the applications, for example on nuclear, and everybody comes with their preconceived views, and that is an issue I think we have to deal with. Science is seen as not infallible sometimes and I think from our Committee standpoint there is a perception that it is important that there may be a need to have committees of experts that are not necessarily just purely drawn from the science community.

Professor Sir David King: Let me answer by giving you two examples where I think this has gone very well. One is the therapeutic cloning discussion in the House of Commons and the House of Lords where the discussion was led by information from scientists but nevertheless the discussion within those two Houses was an exceptionally good discussion. Equally, I think the discussion last night on smoking. You know what the science advice is but then there is a question of public acceptability and changing the position on that. So I think when it comes to policy advice we have to recognise the importance of public acceptability, absolutely.

Q45 Mr Newmark: What evidence is there of the impact of the re-launched Council for Science and Technology? What impact has it had? Is there any at all?

Professor Sir David King: The answer is yes. The Council for Science and Technology draws together a group of people who, rather different to the former Council, include experts who can deal with health and medical issues, experts who can deal with issues of risk, and experts who can look at the whole wealth creation side of the equation. It has produced three very influential documents. Their meetings with the Prime Minister have certainly been effective, I think. The new Council is still in its early days but I do think it is already having an impact.

Q46 Mr Newmark: Sue, do you have much interaction with the Council for Science and Technology?

Ms Duncan: Not directly. It has social scientists on it.

Q47 Chairman: Do you ever sit on it?

Ms Duncan: No.

Chairman: Do you ever attend it?

Q48 Mr Newmark: Do you think you should be interacting with it, involved with it at all, or do you not see yourself having a role at all?

Ms Duncan: I think I trust Sir David to bring me in when he thinks I have a role there.

Q49 Chairman: That is a very diplomatic answer.

Professor Sir David King: The Council for Science and Technology is an external group. They are all drawn from outside government.

Ms Duncan: So I could not actually sit on it even if I wanted to.

Q50 Mr Newmark: How important are the research councils and their institutes in the provision of science advice to government? Is there a case for strengthening their input at all?

Professor Sir David King: The research councils are arms' length bodies from government and I think they are, rightly, jealous of that position, so that any advice that we receive through the research councils would be entirely on a voluntary basis. Now, having said that, I would not hesitate to ring up one of the chief executives of the research councils to ask whether that person him or herself would be able to give me advice or can advise me on one of their own people to advise me. I think that we should not under-estimate the critical importance of the science advice we receive - social science, hard sciences - across the whole patch, from the science base as funded out into the universities and our research institutions. That is what is strengthening the evidence-based policy advice system.

Q51 Chairman: Could I just jump in there to ask you, Sir David, did you then in terms of NERC's decision to close some of its centres intervene to ask whether this was going to have an effect on science and, indeed, your ability in terms of being able to advise government, particularly on some of the those huge environmental research issues?

Professor Sir David King: I would always be rather careful to sit above the discussion. Any research council has to guard its independence but at the same time my views would be well-known to the research council.

Q52 Chairman: Did you give your view on those closures?

Professor Sir David King: I have discussed it with the chief executive but at the same time I respect the view that what might have been good for the research councils to fund in the past might not be good for the research councils to fund in the future, so they have to work within a finite budget and adapt their priorities.

Q53 Mr Newmark: Is there a role for learned societies in the provision of advice or not?

Professor Sir David King: Yes, and in particular we turn to the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineers, but also the Institute of Physics and the engineering learned societies. We turn to them on a regular basis as well.

Q54 Mr Newmark: Moving further along the food chain then, what is your view on the role of consultants in all this?

Professor Sir David King: The role of consultants within government as a whole? No, I do not have a view except insofar as the scientific advice that I receive could be described as consultancy but it is given pro bono.

Q55 Mr Newmark: In my understanding, government does go out to hire consultants and almost outsource some of the advice that it gets. Should this information they get from consultants be used by government to analyse and collect evidence for policy making?

Professor Sir David King: I can only speak for myself, and I do use consultants, so for example in the reviews of government departments we use consultants ---

Q56 Mr Newmark: You do not view it as having a detrimental effect on policy development? I am only going from some of the information I have read. There is a perception that people feel that consultants should not perhaps be used.

Professor Sir David King: I would go against that view.

Chairman: I wonder if we could ask Sue the same question because there is a very, very strong view, particularly in the social policy area, that in fact consultants are hired to give government the advice that it wants in order to affirm its policies. Is that a fair criticism?

Mr Newmark: Most companies that I know, being a venture capitalist, do the same thing. They hire consultants because they have already formulated a policy ---

Q57 Chairman: Government is pure, Brooks, you must realise this!

Ms Duncan: To answer your question, no, I do not think it is a fair criticism. It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that on the social research side, most of our research is commissioned, so it is done by either academics, commercial survey organisations or research institutes, and some of it is done by consultants. We, in line with the rest of government, are committed to the tendering rules set down by the Office of Government Commerce so that when we are commissioning a piece of research we will invite a range of different research providers. As far as the advice that comes from that research, and by no means all research used by government is commissioned by them, it makes enormous use of available research council research of course, I think for the social sciences we actually have a good record drawing on academic expertise. You will know that a number of government departments have brought in academic experts. For example, the Department for Education and Skills has introduced several into the research advice on education for some years. I think the line that is taken broadly is that where advice is needed, we invite the best person for the job, and that might be an academic, it might be a consultant.

Q58 Chairman: Could I ask both of you whether you feel that, as a policy, research which is commissioned should in fact be published?

Ms Duncan: Yes.

Q59 Chairman: Sir David?

Professor Sir David King: Absolutely, except where there is a national security issue.

Chairman: Of course, yes, but that should be a principle we should set because I think that is one of the frustrations that the research is not published. Moving on, Evan, to the use of evidence in policy making.

Q60 Dr Harris: Before I do that, I was just struck by your expression "independent" scientific adviser. The Government says that you are there to give independent advice. This is not a criticism, but would it be fair to say that someone employed by the person they are advising could never be seen to be truly independent?

Professor Sir David King: Of course I am appointed by the Head of the Civil Service so I do not know if you are referring there to the Head of the Civil Service or the Prime Minister.

Q61 Dr Harris: I would like you to comment on whether you think you are as independent --- let us take chief scientific officers within departments, who are not career civil servants, they are there on contract to that department, as a better example. They may give independent advice, and I am not suggesting they do not, but they could not possibly be described as "independent".

Professor Sir David King: If I may answer your question in this way: partly as a result of the BSE crisis, followed by foot-and-mouth disease, both very expensive national crises, the position of the science advisorial system within government had fallen in terms of public confidence, and so when I came into government the first documents I read were the Phillips Commission report into the BSE crisis, and it became absolutely clear to me that the Chief Scientific Adviser needed to establish that the science advice that was given was independent advice. The politicians can then make decisions on the basis of that advice, and they may choose to ignore it, but the advice system should be independent of the political flavour of the moment. So this means that I have positioned myself to gain the confidence of the public, but of course I also have to have the confidence of the political system, so my advice has to be given in a very careful manner. In other words, I really do have to make sure that the evidence has been very carefully sifted on all of the advice that I give. The advice is put into to public domain after it has been put into the political system so that there is always that cross-check. Now, I think the phrase "independent science advice" is contained in that description - that the science advice should not be driven by political convenience

Q62 Dr Harris: I was just questioning there could easily be a distinction made between independent adviser and advice, particularly in those circumstances. If I could give one more example. The Chief Medical Officer was in a position where he considered resignation when his advice, based on evidence, was not at that time (although last night clearly it was) followed on smoking in public places. Most people when they publish something and put something into the public domain and give advice, do not really have to think whether they are going to be able to pay their mortgage if it is ignored. That may be unavoidable, and it is certainly not a personal criticism, absolutely not, I think he was right to say what he said and say what he considered, but that clearly does mean that people in this position (which is analogous to ours and other scientific advisers) do have these other pressures on them. Do you accept that?

Professor Sir David King: Yes, but at the same time I do not believe that it is necessary to say that I would resign if my advice was not followed. In other words, I think the system is open to saying, "No, given other factors, we have decided not to follow that advice."

Q63 Dr Harris: I think you are right, so long as it is clear that the advice was not followed. Coming to this question of the use of evidence, the question is your guidelines on scientific analysis and policy making - and we have had a look at them and they are, I think, well-received generally across the scientific area - is how far do you think they are being implemented? Other than your in-depth science reviews in the areas in which you are doing them, what mechanisms do you have to audit whether the guidance you are giving here is being followed?

Professor Sir David King: The main audit is the one that you have referred to, which is the reviews. In other words, government departments are very large bodies and the business of reviewing the advice system in government departments is a detailed process. What we intend to do is go into every government department approximately every three years, but each review is a six-month process, it is in-depth, and we will go fairly randomly through the process to see whether the advice system engages research and development, whether internal or external, that it is fit for purpose, that it is high quality, and whether the advice that is derived in that way does go through the advisorial system. In other words, whether the advice actually gets to the minister. Without the review process, I think it would be very difficult.

Q64 Dr Harris: I think my colleague, Dr Turner, is going to ask you more about the reviews. I would like to ask Sue, if I may, how far are you aware that social researchers in government are aware of these guidelines and what can be done and what has been done to promote their implementation outside of these in-depth science reviews for social researchers?

Ms Duncan: I would be surprised if any of the chief social researchers were not aware of the guidance. As well as OST sending it out to departments, I sent it out through my networks as well, and one of the key challenges for researchers in departments is to balance that role between technical data collection and analysis and actually using that research to advise in the policy process. We have done a number of things to try and facilitate that. There was a report[1] produced by the Performance and Innovation Unit in, I think, about 2000 which actually pointed up this issue of using advice effectively within government on the social science side, both from the supply side and the demand side. What we have been doing on the supply side is spelling out to all social researchers within government departments what we expect of them in playing that quite difficult role between being a professional researcher and being an adviser on your area of research expertise, and particularly in developing training on communication skills, which both helps them to develop skills in communicating technical information in a simple way and also helps them with that difficult role of knowing how far you can go with the evidence in those sorts of grey areas.

Professor Sir David King: Could I come back to your question just with an added comment, which is in setting out the new version of the chief scientific advisers' guidelines we made a full consultation through the chief scientific advisers' committee with all government departments, so it was not simply a top-down process, it was a process where the original guidelines had been implemented and we were now looking to improve them on the basis of practice in all government departments, so there has been feedback and the new guidelines have taken that into account.

Q65 Dr Harris: I have two specific questions on the guidelines. In paragraph 22 it says "experts" - these are experts from whom departments get advice - "should not be expected to take into account potential political reaction to their findings before presenting them." That is very sensible. Does that apply to advisers as well because it does not say that? Does "experts" include the departmental science advisers or only the experts who feed into the Chief Scientific Adviser, who feeds it on to policy makers?

Professor Sir David King: That particular statement refers to the experts and not the chief scientific advisers but I would say exactly the same applies to chief scientific advisers.

Q66 Dr Harris: You say in paragraph 14 that the "declaration of interests of experts could undermine the credibility or independence of the advice". Credibility as judged by whom? In other words, if someone is not credible with certain NGOs, is that sufficient, is that what is being meant by that?

Professor Sir David King: I think in a sense it could mean somebody who declares an interest through their business interests. My view - and let me try and be clear on this - is that if you were to take a position where "your interests are going to draw you into taking a position on this issue, therefore we cannot have you", you would end up removing a large number of the best experts in the country from many issues. So what we need to do is put out there for discussion ---

Q67 Dr Harris: Agreed, yes.

Professor Sir David King: --- exactly what those declared interests are, but once we have declared that, I think the position becomes a lot easier to deal with.

Q68 Dr Harris: You have not answered my question. My question is what is the threshold for credibility whereby you would say that the advice will be credible, because on that basis---

Professor Sir David King: It is a good question and I have yet to find an example that I could give you.

Q69 Dr Harris: Because you could argue that any scientist working full time for an NGO where it requires there to be concern about and opposition to a policy might fall into that category, but there are plenty of them on government bodies, for example?

Professor Sir David King: But if I take the GM Science Review, on that group there was an expert from the industry who knew the GM industry from inside and there were experts from the NGOs, so by knowing what the declared interests are, I think you can begin to balance the Committee out. As I say, I cannot give you an example where somebody was disqualified on the basis of this. I think the most important thing is having the declared interests.

Dr Harris: I agree.

Q70 Dr Turner: The science reviews that are carried out on different departments, have you got any generic lessons from these or are they all quite different?

Professor Sir David King: I think one generic lesson is that the existence of the science reviews begins to develop best practice in departments even before we arrive, so there are departments which might try and persuade me to delay the review because they want to put things right, and that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it is difficult to reach generic conclusions at this stage. For example, DCMS is the completed review and DCMS has this very large number of arms' length bodies that they fund, quite unlike any other government department, so looking for generic issues at this time is probably a little difficult.

Q71 Dr Turner: Your reviews encompass social science input into the departments as well, I take it?

Professor Sir David King: Yes, as I have said, Sue Duncan helps me in that.

Q72 Dr Turner: If you feel that a department is not taking your advice as an outcome of the reviews, what leverage do you have to persuade them? What did you have to do to DCMS to convince them that they should appoint a chief scientific adviser? Did you have to take them outside and kick them?

Professor Sir David King: The answer to your question is that, in effect, the Treasury is very interested in the process that we are going through. In other words, the Treasury is of course keen to see that there is good value for money in the advice-driven process, and so when we look at the spending review it includes the funds required for the R&D base to improve the science evidence for each government department, and the Treasury now works with my Office on each of those spending review applications from government departments where science and social sciences are included. So in other words, there is a financial factor that, as you might imagine, is quite an important factor in all of this. The Treasury is one important element, but of course the second element is that the drive comes from the Prime Minister to improve the quality of the evidence base.

Q73 Dr Turner: Have you encountered any need to encourage cultural changes in departments to properly accommodate scientific input? I suppose I can think of DFID as a potential type of example to which you might want to refer.

Professor Sir David King: Absolutely. When I talk about the "tanker being turned around", I am talking about a culture change in which the notion of science advice being relevant to a wide range of topics is not always present in government departments and I would say has been rather thin in the past. In other words, science has been seen to be a very small part of the evidence-based advice system and we are simply saying actually there are few areas where the science knowledge base does not impact on improving evidence across the system. So I think that is a culture change.

Chairman: We are going to move on to Adam Afriyie who has been very patient sat there.

Q74 Adam Afriyie: It has been fascinating, I have enjoyed every moment but I am slightly worried because right at this moment there is a risk that the ceiling may collapse and we may all be horribly injured in the next ten minutes. Do you think we should clear the room?

Professor Sir David King: You are telling me that there is a risk that this ceiling might collapse?

Q75 Adam Afriyie: There is a risk there. There is a risk that it may happen in the next ten minutes. What I really want to bring us on to is the subject of risk and the perception and the communication of it, because, as you can see, it is quite an alarming if communicated ineffectively or in a deliberately excitable fashion by the media. My first question really is do government departments have sufficient expertise in risk assessment and do you have measures that you use to fathom whether or not they are achieving those standards or that expertise?

Professor Sir David King: Let me first say that, as you probably know, the Treasury leads on managing risk. It has the managing risk framework and I am sure you will ask the Treasury about this. May I quote from the Prime Minister's speech of 26 May 2005. He said in his speech on Risk and the State: "We cannot eliminate risk; we have to live with it and manage it." I think this is your point about the ceiling falling down. I would say that most of my work is in the category of managing risk. If you take the tsunami, in that post-tsunami period it was a matter of looking at risks around the world from natural disasters and how we can manage them.

Q76 Adam Afriyie: In the government departments do you feel that there is sufficient understanding of not just the risks or sufficient expertise to assess those risks, but also the ability to to assess them consistently across the various government departments?

Professor Sir David King: I think the quality of practice varies from one government department to another. I think you are quite right to raise it, but this is precisely why the Prime Minister made the speech on this because we want to raise the profile of the quality of risk analysis and risk management.

Ms Duncan: Perhaps I could just come in there, Sir David. The Treasury does provide a framework guidance which is used by departments which sets a clear structure on how they appraise risk, and that is used by departments.

Q77 Adam Afriyie: And it would seem to me that everybody perceives risk. In the social sciences there is also the concept of stress and stress caused to people and whether it is internally generated or whether it is a reality of the environment. When it comes to risk it seems to me that surely it would be fairly straightforward to create a standardised table of risks that people understand in their daily lives so that when something is communicated, it is compared to something which people generally understand. That is one way of keeping a consistent way of communicating risk to the public. Is there a table like this - you have alluded to something similar in terms of the assessment of risk, Sue - but is there a table like that that could be used when communicating the risk of certain outcomes taking place?

Professor Sir David King: The best table along this direction is really produced by the life insurance industry in terms of the added risk to yourself of different lifestyle habits or occupations. Again, if I may refer to that vote last night, smoking is absolutely at the top of the list of risks, so a life insurance agency will ask you just two questions: Are you male or female? because females outlive males, on average, and Do you smoke? because the risk to your life from smoking is so far above all the other major risks that we face. So, yes, the tables are there but the risk perception, as we all know, is that if there is an accident on the road and several people are killed, there will be zero publicity attached to it, but if there is a rail accident, there will be a large amount of publicity attached to it. So the focus goes on dealing with risk on the rail rather than the road.

Q78 Adam Afriyie: Can I just confirm, is there a consistent method across government departments to assess risk which is used in a standardised way across all government departments? Does that sort of methodology exist and is it being used?

Ms Duncan: That is the Treasury appraisal guidance which I mentioned earlier. You pointed to the issue of the communication of risk and there are five principles set out by the Chancellor which underpin the approach to risk. One of those is public involvement. To support the guidance issued by the Treasury, the Head of the Government Communication Service has also issued guidance for departments to follow in communicating risk and it is very much a recognition of the importance of how that is communicated to the public which is an important element of it.

Q79 Chairman: We are hopelessly unsuccessful, are we not? The Daily Mail is far more successful in communicating risk than the Government is?

Ms Duncan: I think I would say it depends if you want a real communication of risk, a balanced communication of risk or ---

Q80 Chairman: My point is we are not getting it right, are we, because clearly what we are seeing in the media is often a distortion of the level of risk, which is the very point that Adam began his line of questioning with. That is a comment rather than a question.

Ms Duncan: I think probably if you had a Treasury person in front of you they would agree we are still learning how to communicate risk. Similarly, I suspect that Howell James would say the same thing. It is an area that we need to do more work on and I think that is recognised.

Professor Sir David King: Could I just add on the risk issue that at the Prime Minister's suggestion, Howard James, Liam Donaldson, myself and John Hutton did do a series of visits with the media discussing how they might manage risk. This has been very much a focus of our attention - the way the media actually determine what the public perception of risk is.

Q81 Dr Harris: With regard to that point, it was led by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, there was something in the Independent about it, and indeed there was an interview with the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster saying you had done what you have just said and talks with newspaper editors would follow, but nothing has been heard since. Do you think the failure to replace John Hutton has meant that that initiative has ground to a halt or has some other Minister unbeknownst to us anyway taken on the reins?

Professor Sir David King: I have certainly continued the action myself so I have since then had a meeting with the editor of The Guardian and his full editorial board talking about the issue of risk. As a matter of fact, if you are asking for an outcome, I do believe that there is a perceivable change in The Guardian's handling of these issues. The Guardian has now included science issues covering a whole range of activities. If you look at their pages, they not only have a page on science in the main body of the paper but they are trying to include science advice on many of the issues of current debate. So that is a difficult part of your question, Dr Harris, which is the real outcome that we want to see is a change in the way the Daily Mail handles risk. That is quite a tall call but that is what we were trying to achieve.

Q82 Dr Harris: Perhaps the Daily Mail should be your next lunch!

Professor Sir David King: I am not sure I am going to manage that one.

Q83 Dr Harris: Do you see that you have a role or that scientists within government have a role correcting things that are just wrong about policy and risk being set out? Should there be more letters to newspapers? Should when Members of Parliament sign ridiculous early day motions about how we are all going to die from mobile phone masts we be getting more advice from people in the know? Should you say, "My report did not say do not put a mast near a school," which it did not, which everyone who signs these things thinks it does, for example?

Professor Sir David King: I think my role within government is clearly different from the role that you are referring to now. The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology should be performing that role and I think they do rather a good job.

Q84 Dr Harris: With regard to risk, can you give the Government definition of the precautionary principle?

Professor Sir David King: I am going to be given a definition. It states that "When there is reasonable suspicion of harm, lack of scientific certainty or consensus must not be used to postpone preventative action."

Q85 Adam Afriyie: That sounds very unscientific.

Professor Sir David King: That is what the precautionary principle states.

Q86 Dr Harris: Can I just ask where that comes from? Is that your own formulation?

Professor Sir David King: Absolutely not, no!

Dr Turner: It is a lousy definition.

Q87 Chairman: What would be your definition then, Sir David?

Professor Sir David King: I am quite careful always to refer to a precautionary approach because I think it may be unscientific to refer to this as a principle. There are all sorts of principles in science and the precautionary approach is, I think, a sensible approach in which the risks are analysed as best we can. What we cannot do is freeze ourselves into total inaction on the basis of all the unknown unknowns. I think we have to always weigh up potential advantages and disadvantages, but a precautionary approach is exactly what we used in the GM Science Review, and you will find that there is a chapter in that GM Science Review which is the most detailed analysis of GM yet published in which we take the precautionary approach and spell it out.

Q88 Dr Harris: But the anti-GM people say they take the precautionary approach, so we are no better off unless there is a clear definition of precautionary approach. Similarly, business would like the European Union, the European Court of Justice, to be consistent, I guess, because otherwise one never knows whether one is breaching a precautionary approach or principle as it is set. Is there a role for the UK Government to issue a clear description of what it considers to be the precautionary approach which can help the courts where there is litigation and also to influence the European Union, which has a jumble of case law now with multiple definitions of precautionary principle which are contradictory, in fact?

Professor Sir David King: Dr Harris, I think you are seeking clarity where clarity may be very difficult to give because it will be used by those who claim they know what the best position is. I think the only answer to this is to look at the detailed scientific analysis. When I say we used the precautionary approach in the GM Science Review, the approach was taken that any advice we gave on GMs that would be acceptable as crops to grow in this country and would be acceptable for people to eat, should have been through all of the carefully scientifically regulated process that we could come up with. Now that was our conclusion, that this is a reasonably good approach to applying precautions, but if we claim that we understand a principle, then we could always say there are enough unknown unknowns to prevent us ever from doing anything new from science and technology. So my worry is that those NGOs who are trying to use this - and many of them are absolutely right in their use of precautionary approach - is when they turn it into a principle and say, "We are the determinants of whether this principle is being applied or not, then we go into a non-scientific approach.

Q89 Dr Harris: I accept that we will never get that clarity, but is there anything more the Government can do to help resolve what I have said to you is a complete disjunction of understanding of what this can mean? Is there merit in there being some work done to promulgate what the approach should be and the fact it should not be distilled down into a principle, even an agreed one?

Professor Sir David King: I have to repeat that evidence-based policy advice is what we ought to be seeking.

Q90 Dr Harris: On the question of the evidence base, are you confident that departments are taking into account, when it comes to risk, evidence before issuing policy? Let us take a recent example of the Department for Education and Skills seeming to decide now that the risk from someone who has ever looked at pornographic pictures of children is such that they cannot ever be employed in a school as a rule, and that obviously has implications for the human rights and the income of the people concerned. Was there any scientific evidence sought or obtained about what the risk was to underpin that decision or do we just sail on without doing that because it is a difficult issue?

Ms Duncan: The answer is I do not know on that specific example, but perhaps if I could tell you how the system works to ensure that evidence is included in the process of policy making. All major new policies have to go through what is called a Regulatory Impact Assessment. That is overseen by the Better Regulation Executive in the Cabinet Office and each department has its own departmental unit to oversee the process. That covers a range of issues, including the evidence that supports the policy, cost-benefit analysis, and things like setting out the arrangements for evaluating policy once it is implemented. There are a number of other things in the RIA and that also is a way of looking at risk; but that has to be addressed in Regulatory Impact Assessments.

Q91 Dr Harris: You would expect the Education and Skills Department to have had all that before promulgating a policy of life bans in the way that they did?

Ms Duncan: In the early stages of advice to ministers, they would be bringing in that advice. When the policy decision is made that would be the time the Regulatory Impact Assessment would kick in and it would exist throughout the life of the policy.

Professor Sir David King: I think we would both say that the advisory system would fail if there was not the evidence produced to back up a decision, but at the same time of course the decisions may go against the advice.

Chairman: Provided that is clear, then at least there is a rationale to it. It is when the advice seems to be very clear in terms of the research and there is no evidence to say why the Government entered the decision. We are going to move on from there if it is okay and bring in Jim Devine.

Q92 Mr Devine: Thank you very much indeed, and I am very glad you have got a magic wand because I have to disappear in ten minutes! Do you monitor how many consultations meet the Cabinet Office guidance on good practice? We have been advised that contrary to the guidance, departments are not allowing a 12-week consultation period or publishing proper feedback on how the consultation input has been used for policy development. I just wonder about the consultation periods.

Ms Duncan: As you have said, the consultation guidance is owned by the Cabinet Office and they oversee that guidance, but it is for departments to decide how they implement that guidance. I do not know the guidance in detail but I do know that it does allow, under certain conditions, departments to break with that time period if there is a very clear reason why.

Mr Devine: Can you give me an example?

Q93 Chairman: And do you know how many times they do break it?

Ms Duncan: No, I do not, but I can get the information from the Cabinet Office which I can send to you. My understanding is that they do not any more monitor the way departments implement the guidance.

Q94 Chairman: So there is no point in having it really?

Ms Duncan: Well, I would not say that. I think it sets out clear expectations.

Q95 Mr Devine: Prior to becoming an MP, I worked as a full-time officer with a health union, and there was a lot of cynicism about consultations on changes in health because there was a perception amongst the public that decisions had basically been taken beforehand and that the consultations are a sham. I wonder how you would respond to the criticism that sometimes policies bear very little resemblance to the key messages of the consultation?

Ms Duncan: I think across departments we have been doing an awful lot to go beyond the formal consultation paper so that departments are developing more informal methods to include the people that would not necessarily respond to a formal consultation paper. Within my own professional area of expertise, we are adapting the methods of social research to aid in the consultation process. So, for example, departments have run Citizens Juries which enable lay people to be involved in the whole process of consultation, and it both provides them with expert advice within whatever area they are consulting on and it helps them to express their views in a more informal way. If you look at the Policy Hub[2] site which is run by the Cabinet Office, there is a whole range of examples of different ways that departments have used to try and address that whole issue where conventional consultation has gone to a specific group of people. I would not say that we have got it completely licked, but I think we are working on it.

Q96 Mr Devine: Could it be the case that scientists are unrealistic about the influence they have on policy? Does it mean that such polices are not evidence-based?

Professor Sir David King: I think that, in a way, comes back to the very general questions before, to what extent are we being successful in providing evidence-based policy advice, but when decisions are made - and I just repeat this - by ministers, it may or may not follow that advice. My experience is that the practice of advice being followed where I have been involved directly has been very good.

Ms Duncan: I think sometimes it is followed; sometimes it is not. I think the important thing is that the advice is set clearly in front of ministers so that they can make the decisions on the merits of the advice, and we have to be sure that we are presenting them, where there is a range of opinions and where research does not come up with black and white answers (which it often does not, particularly in the social sciences) that we present them with the clearest possible guidance on what the research as a whole says. We have been working very actively within the last couple of years to encourage departments to use the techniques of systematic review, which were first developed to present conflicting medical evidence and are now being used for the social sciences, so that we can say in a broad area, where research sometimes conflicts or does not give a clear answer, what we actually know and what the implications for policy are and what degree of certainty that advice can be taken to have.

Chairman: I would like to bring Adam in here.

Q97 Adam Afriyie: Sir David, I have been to one or two of your presentations on climate change and they are fantastic, really excellent stuff. I sometimes see you on television - sometimes. When you are speaking on the television or when you are speaking to the media, who are you speaking on behalf of and what are you seeking to achieve?

Professor Sir David King: I am speaking on behalf of the advisory system within government, as when I speak on climate change around the world as well. I think that I would also have to say, though, that there has been a real task in terms of explaining carefully the science underlying the Government's position on climate change. So given that I put the evidence before Government in the first place, it then becomes quite apparent that that evidence needed to be put out into the public domain.

Q98 Adam Afriyie: And do you think by putting it out into the public domain directly yourself that then influences and places an additional pressure on the Government or the ministers to actually take it more seriously?

Professor Sir David King: I think that may well be a follow through, yes.

Q99 Adam Afriyie: So that is the media involvement. What is the primary role of public engagement? In terms of public engagement in evidence-based policy development, what is the primary role of that public engagement? I will give you some examples. Is it to allow the public to shape the direction of the policy, inform the public about the issues, or to make the Government aware of public concerns? What is the basic intended role of public involvement?

Professor Sir David King: Let me give you again the GM science debate as an issue where I believe it is fair to say that the United Kingdom has lost a wealth-creating opportunity. In other words, we had several major companies that had invested very significantly into research into modern GM foods. Those investments have now been dropped effectively to zero, and this is because the public has decided that they do not want GM foods on the supermarket shelves. So the GM Science Review that I headed up, which was, as I have said, a group of scientists drawn broadly, but nevertheless a group of scientists who produced a review, has not actually been followed through by public acceptance. I think the public position of scepticism is probably related to the BSE crisis; we cannot trust on foodstuffs.

Q100 Adam Afriyie: So you would see part of the public engagement to do with persuading the public?

Professor Sir David King: Part of the public engagement is to taken an issue ahead of time - and nanotechnology is an exemplar of that - and engage with the public, which means listening to their worries and concerns. The ScienceWise process is not simply saying, "This is what the scientists say," it is saying, "This is what the scientists say and what is your response to that?" And we take that on board in order to formulate a policy of regulatory systems in which we can benefit economically from developments in nanotechnology and the public can develop an assured position on the product.

Q101 Adam Afriyie: But my observation of consultations is that they tend to raise the expectations of the people involved. A very brief example in Windsor constituency of knocking on doors, there is a lovely old lady who lives in central Windsor and she said, "Could you come and help me? My eyesight is failing" - she was in her mid-80s - "I have got another consultation document on the development of some flats a bit further down the road." I think this was her fifth document and she had spent hours filling these things in, and I knew, as well as most of us know as MPs, that the result of that is generally zero and what is going ahead is going to go ahead in any case. So do you think that you are managing the expectations correctly of the people who are involved in public consultations and you are not setting them up for a fall?

Professor Sir David King: I think we are in a very different place when we come to talk about the issues I am discussing compared with the one you have discussed because here we are saying it may well be that the Government, as in the case of GM, will say, yes, these products have been through our detailed analysis, they are safe, but the public still says we do not accept it. In the case of nanotechnology, we are simply saying let us get ahead of the curve so where the Government is and where the public is is more likely to be in the same place.

Q102 Adam Afriyie: My final question is in the interests of transparency - and you seem to be a very open Chief Scientific Adviser and you were praised very highly by Lord May, who is a live wire but I think he has got a good instinct. Should it not be compulsory for departments to publish their expert advice?

Professor Sir David King: That is an issue that I would not really want to comment on. I think we all know the problem that obviously it is important for me to put my advice into the public domain because of the need to get public confidence that what I am doing is not being politically driven, but there is another discussion and argument to be had about the freedom of discussion within government and how much that might be impaired if everything was placed in the public domain, so I think there is another decision.

Dr Harris: After the decision is made, what about making it compulsory to publish two things - the scientific advice upon which it is based, not necessarily the advice but the evidence upon which the advice was summarising and also a statement of the strength of that evidence, like they do in the medical field now because everyone keeps saying there is evidence and it is a very poor evidence base. You have got to be able to distinguish that from something where there is good evidence. One those two points, would you agree that there is a case for publishing the ---

Adam Afriyie: And also in the social sciences.

Chairman: I think you had already agreed that. The advice is more tricky but it would be useful. Could we ask you to reflect on whether, in fact, once a decision is made by Government that the advice which was given, which might be in conflict with the evidence, is published, and perhaps you could write to us on that?

Dr Harris: My question was also about the extent of the strength of the evidence.

Q103 Chairman: That would come in the advice.

Professor Sir David King: That would certainly come in the advice. We are back to saying we cannot reduce risk to zero, we have to manage risk, so, yes, that implies that we have to state the strength of our understanding.

Chairman: I am trying in about three minutes to wrap up this session, so, Brooks, can I just move you on.

Q104 Mr Newmark: How effective is horizon scanning in areas relating to science at the moment? How do you respond to criticism that the Government has been slow to identify a need for scientific input in legislation, and an example of this might be the Human Tissue Act?

Professor Sir David King: I have already stated that I run the Government's Foresight programme and within the Foresight team I have now set up a centre of excellence for horizon scanning and within that centre we are assisting other government departments, through training, to improve the quality of horizon scanning across government departments.

Q105 Mr Newmark: What does horizon scanning mean to you, in layman's language?

Professor Sir David King: Quite simply - and if I may come back to the foot-and-mouth epidemic because I think it is easiest to explain it in particular terms - we had a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in 1967 in this country and the lessons learned were placed in a document for the Ministry to use if it should ever happen again. They dusted them over and applied them immediately in 2001. However, between 1967 and 2001 some major changes in farming practice had occurred. It particular, farmers were now sending their animals from one farm to another through the lifetime of an animal and often to markets in between. In other words, before slaughter and going to the table, an animal might go through three or four different farms, which means that the animal movements around the country had changed dramatically, so whereas in 1967 the outbreak was confined largely to one region of the country, in 2001 it had been nucleated throughout the country through this animal movement. That was something that I believe horizon scanning can pick up if it is done properly. In other words, you horizon scan for changes in practice which might affect the way you would manage a situation like that.

Mr Newmark: I will not come back to you.

Q106 Dr Iddon: For Sue Duncan please; you have heard that the OST have set up a centre of excellence in horizon scanning. Why have you not set up a similar body to cover the sphere of influence that you are interested in?

Ms Duncan: Because the horizon scanning centre within the Office of Science and Technology also addresses the needs of social sciences. It goes across the board and I think that is actually its strength, that we look at science and social science together. There are good examples already of us working together with the horizon scanning centre in ensuring that we are anticipating future problems and issues.

Dr Iddon: I cannot beat that answer. Thank you.

Chairman: Can I say thank you both very much indeed, Sue and Sir David, for this session. We do have quite a series of questions which we have not asked you, particularly about evaluation, and I would be very grateful if we could write to you with those to try to get a response on those, which would be most useful. Thank you very much indeed for a very, very interesting session and thank you to my Committee. The Committee is adjourned.

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[1] Note by the witness: Cabinet Office (2000), 'Adding it up: Improving Analysis and Modelling in Central Government', available at http://www.strategy.gov.uk/downloads/su/adding/coiaddin.pdf

[2] Note by the witness: http://www.policyhub.gov.uk