NOTHING worthwhile has come from the government鈥檚 six-month investigation into state-funded laboratories, according to an all-party group of MPs. 鈥淲e have grave reservations about the conduct and the main conclusions of the scrutiny,鈥� says the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology. In a report published last week, the MPs say the remit and conduct of the investigation may have been 鈥減rofoundly and unnecessarily damaging鈥� to the morale of researchers at the laboratories.
The government鈥檚 Efficiency Unit, headed by Peter Levene, examined 53 laboratories with a view to privatising them or finding other ways to increase the value for money they give. In its conclusions it recommended only two privatisations on top of five that were already in the pipeline. It found no duplication of research and scant opportunities for saving money (This Week, 16 July).
鈥淣ot only was the team unable to produce concrete examples of overcapacity, [Levene] was unable to quantify any savings from reorganisation,鈥� say the MPs. They also attack the logic behind the exercise, arguing that the government saw privatisation and rationalisation as 鈥渟olutions鈥� before any problems had been identified.
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The Efficiency Unit proposed that laboratories should be grouped together, either in geographic groupings or because their work is related. But the MPs say there would be 鈥渟erious practical difficulties鈥� implementing these recommendations. Geographic groupings could lead to duplication of research, they say. The same forestry research might be done in Scotland and England, for example. Grouping laboratories by research interest would also lead to anomalies: the Marine Sciences Laboratory in Plymouth, for example, would be run from Scotland under the Efficiency Unit鈥檚 plan.
The MPs also pour scorn on the idea that laboratories could be privatised by transferring control of them to universities. It is a 鈥渇iction鈥�, say the MPs, that such transfers remove the laboratories鈥� activities from the public sector.
鈥淭he underlying worry is that it was all Treasury-led, and it was just looking at where money might be saved,鈥� says Anne Campbell, a Labour member of the committee. 鈥淚 think the government wanted to use the scrutiny to find ways of reducing spending on research.鈥�