Science and TechnologyWritten evidence submitted by a BAS employee
We have three overriding concerns about the way the BAS-NOC merger proposal has been governed by senior management at NERC, in particular the Interim Director of BAS (Prof Ed Hill) and the Chief Executive of NERC (Prof Duncan Wingham). These are:
1. Staff at BAS were given conflicting messages, which could be construed as misleading, about the future of BAS throughout the past nine months. Evidence of this, based on oral and written communications to staff, is provided below.
2. Staff at BAS are of the view that the consultation did not comply with best practice:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Evidence of each of these points, based on oral and written communications to staff, is provided below.
3. Staff at BAS have not had an independent leadership representing their interests during this period. Since January 2012, the BAS Director has left and been replaced by the NERC Chief Executive with an Interim Director who is also the Director of the very institute (NOC) with which there is a proposal to merge. The Interim Director has never visited Antarctica and since he started has only been in the BAS Cambridge building for an average of five days per month! The lack of leadership was further impacted as the Deputy Director and the Head of Corporate Services felt obliged to leave BAS during this time and were not replaced. !
These concerns were expressed by staff to two members of NERC Council when they visited BAS on 4 October, an audio recording is available.
Note: all quotes are supported by audio recordings, emails or typed notes, which can be made available.
1. Evidence that staff have been given conflicted messages/have been misled: Will BAS retain its identity or not?
20 March Duncan Wingham presentation to all staff: “There isn’t a future in a single integrated institute [across all of NERC]. I don’t think it makes much sense. There is considerable diversity in the NERC centres and there is strength in diversity. And I think we need as much to recognise the strengths of that diversity as any weaknesses it has. So just a message to you: certainly the future will be more evolutionary than revolutionary.”
7 June NERC news item on public website: “NERC is considering a merger of the scientific and logistics management of marine and polar science delivered through its National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS). A marine and polar headquarters would deliver a single management function whilst retaining the identity of the existing centres as component parts.”
7 June Duncan Wingham Q&A to all staff: “NERC Council were firmly of the view that we should retain the present brands of NOC and BAS. But if you move to having a single shared management function, what do you call the shared management function? Does it have an identity? How does its identity relate to these two existing identities? There is no clear answer to that question today. But there is a firm view that we should retain the two existing identities. NOC has made a lot of effort to make the NOC brand successful in the marine domain. BAS itself has a very clearly understood brand and the brand extends beyond science and flags a group of activities in the South Atlantic which government is also interested in. We regard these things as fixed points.”
7 June NERC FAQs: “BAS and NOC are strong brands that will be retained.”
27 June Ed Hill email to all staff: “Stakeholders have been informed that the identity of the two centres would be retained.”
31 Jul Ed Hill email to all staff: “I recognize that we have used a range of terminology to describe this merger. No doubt this has added to confusion about what is being envisaged. To be clear, therefore, the proposal is to combine the management of the science, logistics/infrastructure and support/administration functions of BAS and NOC. This would bring about a full merger of the two organisations to create a single new centre with its own identity. All staff would then work within this centre.”
11 Sep Consultation document: “The effect of merging NOC and BAS would be to create a single new NERC Research Centre [the NERC Centre for Marine and Polar Science] encompassing marine and polar sciences with a single scientific vision, a single Executive Director and a single integrated management team… NERC considers that it would make sense to develop a new Centre identity that will subsume the BAS and NOC brands.”
2 Oct Media statement by NERC: “There are no plans to close BAS or to close the BAS offices in Cambridge.”
10 Oct Duncan Wingham meeting with science leaders at BAS: “BAS is an identity and a budget and a place... Reputations can be overstated. My real concern is the identity of a name [BAS] with a geographic footprint and that is a problem with the business plan. So I want to signal that change. I would be happy if there could be found a way out of this such that then the name is irrelevant... The name is not important to me. The merger splits the BAS identity, purpose, etc. This cannot be achieved by simply changing the funding structure.”
2. Evidence the Consultation Did Not Comply With Best Practice
(i) Will there be independent assessment of the consultation responses?
11 September Ed Hill Q&A to all staff: “The communications team in Swindon is leading [the assessment of the consultation responses]. They will be farming out the answers to the merger team to deal with around particular areas. [We don’t have an expert outside impartial group examining the results], it is being done by NERC. I can see that [one could give it to an outside organisation] but what one would get is a statistical analysis and summaries, but we need people who are going to be involved in making the case and planning the merger to understand what is being said and what is being meant.”
(ii) Why is there no of financial or scientific evidence for the proposed merger in the consultation document?
4 October Ed Hill Q& A to all staff: “This is a point of confusion. The simple matter is that the financial and business case at present does not exist. That’s why you can’t see it. The merger team has been tasked by the Council on the basis of this strategic judgement that this is worth exploring, to develop a scientific and business case. We are in the process of developing the scientific and business case. Can I give you the numbers today? No because they do not exist, but they will exist to give to the Council.”
(iii) Is the consultation about whether BAS and NOC will merger or has that already been decided?
7 June Duncan Wingham talk to all staff: “It signals an intent of Council to go that way [merge NOC and BAS]… unless it turns out as a result of detailed planning or the consultation process that there are very strong arguments that it is an inappropriate way to go… This is the intention, this is the plan… even though there remains considerable uncertainty about the detail”
7 June Duncan Wingham talk to all staff: “Some words on what consultation means… it is very important in bringing together detailed plans that one provides every opportunity for people to raise concerns… so that to the extent that the planners regard this as desirable or necessary those concerns can be folded into the plan… It is in that way I understand ‘consultation’ and it is what Council mean when they say they wish the plan to be consulted… Would Council change its mind? Yes… On the one hand it is not a ‘done deal’, but on the other hand it isn’t a consultation on the ‘if’. We are not asking people whether they think this will be a good idea or not.”
11 Jul Ed Hill email to all staff: “The strategic case for merger is already considered to be very convincing and therefore the focus of the consultation will be on obtaining views on how best to achieve the combined management of marine and polar science, not whether to do this.”
11 Sep Consultation document: “Consequently, NERC is consulting its staff and stakeholders to invite ideas on how to implement the intended changes to achieve the strategic objectives.”
October 2012