Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-109)
SIR LESZEK
BORYSIEWICZ, DR
MARK WALPORT,
PROFESSOR MALCOLM
GRANT, AND
MRS LYNN
ROBB
17 DECEMBER 2007
Q100 Dr Blackman-Woods: Perhaps a
question for all of you is what you are doing to ensure that all
the staff that are affected are enthused by this new vision and
this new centre. Have you thought of strategies to bring the staff
on board?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: First,
the most important from my perspective is ensuring that we have
a proper communication strategy with the staff. I have put in
place regular meetings with myself as we go forward with this
process; I think that is important. The director is fully informed.
At the same time what I believe is very important is that I have
to ensure the staff have confidence at NIMR that their science
is going to continue to be supported, that we get an appointment
not of an acting director but of a director at NIMR to ensure
that they have the confidence to move forward, that their science
is going to be supported, that as they go through own quinquennial
reviews they are given every opportunity to prove that their science
is world-class, and that they have engagement with the process
that has been undertaken by representation on Sir Paul Nurse's
group so that they know exactly what is going on and that they
have a chance to communicate those views to the staff. I have
to make myself available, as will any new director, to discuss
these matters with the staff in such a way that they feel that
their views are being taken on board and are being taken seriously.
That is the overall strategy that I wish to adopt in relationship
to the staff on this site.
Q101 Dr Blackman-Woods: You wish
to adopt, so you think that perhaps there is not a strategy in
place already?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: I am putting
this strategy in place. I cannot comment in great detail on what
has gone before but I do recognise that from previous reports
this Committee has been critical at times of the communication
with staff and I am clearly cognisant of that and am trying to
avoid the same criticism being applied on this occasion.
Q102 Dr Blackman-Woods: All four
partners are going to fund staff and research at the new centre,
either directly or indirectly. To what extent will we still be
able to see units such as NIMR or Cancer Research UK, or is the
new centre going to be one new identity for all of you?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: This is
still a point which is up for discussion because the governance
of this centre is at the same point in terms of the science. I
am afraid this is in a sense repetitive but the primacy is to
decide what is the science we are going to do, secondly, to ensure
that not only do we have the physical infrastructure but that
also we have a governance model that is capable of delivering
the integrated science that we wish to see on this site. That
is absolutely something that will be up for debate and I am sure
the staff of all the institutes will have a strong view in relationship
to it. Whether the identity that is going to be retained in six
years' time is an NIMR or a London Institute identity or whether
people are going it will want to work in a much more integrated
unit is something we will have to see once the science is moved
forward, but there is no a priori assumption at this point
that you are going to be trying to withdraw the identity from
any particular group.
Q103 Dr Blackman-Woods: Would you
say that the staff were being adequately involved in shaping the
new centre? I was not quite clear from what you were saying whether
they would be involved in shaping it or whether you were just
communicating what happens and giving them an opportunity to slot
their science into it.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Clearly,
I believe that on the small committee that Sir Paul Nurse is chairing—and
as you can begin to sense, the decisions of that committee are
key—the staff themselves are actually represented. I am
sure that is going to engender an enormous amount of debate on
the campus site at NIMR and I am sure the same will apply to the
London institutes, so I do believe that they are inherently involved
in the process and, knowing the staff at NIMR, I am sure they
are going to make their views known to me pretty vociferously
as well.
Professor Grant: May I just say
in relation to UCL that the dynamics are very different. It is
not a move of a large number of UCL staff. There may be perhaps
300, something like that, but that is out of a total research
and teaching complement of 4,500. The real enthusiasm at UCL is
coming not only from the life sciences community and the biomedical
community but right across physical sciences and particularly,
I would say, from chemistry, chemical biology and nanotechnology,
so the excitement within my institution is about the synergistic
effects that this co-location can have rather than, as it were,
taking the whole dynamic of the institution with it.
Dr Walport: I just want to make
the point that this is going to be a national institute and so
the Wellcome Trust's interest is in funding the very best science
and in providing the very best facilities, and there will be important
opportunities for scientists at all of the universities in the
UK to participate, and again one of the aspects of this is communication,
so I think it is really important that this is a national institute.
We are not interested in putting funds into anything else.
Q104 Ian Stewart: Sir Leszek, and
perhaps Professor Grant as well, you talked about the staff being
consulted, I take it, through their various trade union organisations.
The consultation process will take its course as you have described
but are you both making yourselves accessible to the trade unions
if they wish to approach you?
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Of course
I am accessible to the trade unions and to all the staff representation.
At the end of the day I am making myself personally available
during the times that we already have meetings fixed for in the
diary, and the next meeting is in February, to enable staff to
put additional points to me. We also have routine representative
meetings with the staff side and with union representation which
are inherent in the MRC processes, so there are very clearly defined
routes whereby staff through their trade unions and others can
make representation to me during this process.
Professor Grant: I have regular
meetings with our trade unions but this issue has never arisen
in the course of those meetings because the dynamics are different.
For UCL it is seen as entirely a matter of opportunity.
Mrs Robb: Although we do not have
a union environment per se we do have a very active staff
consultative forum set up and that is a very regular opportunity
for our researchers to be involved and to ask as many questions
as they wish on top of the process that we will be going through
on the whole planning.
Q105 Dr Turner: Malcolm, the UCL
contribution is £46 millions, relatively small. Clearly you
are not going to have any particular problems with your staff
because it is all opportunity. Would it be fair to say that UCL
is really going to get a very good deal out of this in terms of
staff opportunities and prestige for a relatively small input?
Professor Grant: Chairman, to
Dr Turner £46 million may seem relatively small.
Q106 Chairman: Such is the talk in
the Labour Party at the moment!
Professor Grant: Of course my
institution would have to say it is a very significant capital
contribution which we are having to schedule over a period of
the coming seven years, but he is quite right. It is an investment
that we feel it is appropriate to make because of the opportunities
it brings to the university, and for all the reasons I have mentioned
this afternoon the interaction with so many other bits of UCL
is what makes this particularly exciting.
Q107 Chairman: I just have two final
brief questions, Sir Leszek. In the press release which came out
regarding the new facility there was much talk about public partners
with the local community on the plans to shape the UKCMRI. It
will develop activities to communicate with members of the public
and promote science education. Where has all that come from, because
there is not any? You have not even spoken to the council, let
alone the people.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: In setting
up this process, of course, we are going to have to communicate
and understand the needs of the local community but we are right
at the starting blocks of that particular process. Up until three
weeks ago we did not even know that we were the preferred bidder
for the land itself, so it would have been presumptuous again
to anticipate it. What we are putting in place is a process whereby
we will be able to get that engagement with the community and
with the council and that is a process that is ongoing and so
we are starting to put that in place.
Q108 Chairman: Perhaps you could
take a message from the Committee that we are delighted to hear—I
speak for myself but I am pretty sure I speak for the whole Committee—that
the staff are now right at the fore of those consultations, and
obviously we hope as a Committee that the public will also be
at the fore of those consultations, because the greater the transparency
over the proposals the better it is for everybody concerned. It
is with transparency I ask the last question. Clearly the figures
which we have been talking about today are really, to be honest,
back-of-a-cigarette-packet rather than accurate costings. We would
like as a Committee to have a clear indication as to what is the
financial make-up and particularly who is putting what into it,
and, finally, what are the elements that you need from government
and the Large Facilities Capital Fund because if we are to make
any recommendations, if it is to support your proposal then we
need to know what it is we are supporting, or indeed, if we are
not, why we are not.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Of course,
Chairman, and I would be very happy to provide that information
to the Committee. You will, of course, appreciate that the changes
on the commercial fund are about three days old, so the request
for information—
Q109 Chairman: Mere excuses!
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: —still
have to be thought through as to the precise sums that would be
involved, but I will, of course, communicate that to the Committee
as soon as we have those available.
Chairman: Finally, can I thank you all
again for coming at such short notice. This is an issue the Committee
is deeply interested in, so, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Dr Mark Walport,
Professor Malcolm Grant and Mrs Lynn Robb, thank you very much
indeed. Have a happy Christmas.
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