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Dozens of government laboratories could be merged into a single civil
research agency under a plan being considered by a team of ‘efficiency’
experts called in by the science minister William Waldegrave. The team,
from the government’s Efficiency Unit, has visited 53 state-owned institutions
and is now reshaping their future.

Last year, Waldegrave’s Office of Public Service and Science commissioned
the unit to review all laboratories run by government departments, research
councils and other state-owned science units. The remit was to find ways
to privatise laboratories, rationalise them or explore other methods of
making them more profitable (This Week, 22 January).

But the Efficiency Unit’s unpublished ‘study plan’ for the scrutiny
goes much further. It says: ‘Alternative ownership arrangements to be reviewed
include . . . a civil research agency; more than one civil research agency;
and joint ownership of establishments by departments.’

In agriculture, for example, the agency could take over 21 establishments
now run by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Scottish
Office, the Agricultural and Food Research Council and the Scottish Agricultural
Research Institutes. Such a setup would fulfil one of the aims in last May’s
White Paper of separating the customers of research, such as departments
and research councils, from the contractors – the laboratories.

But the proposal is already drawing criticism. Robert Jackson, until
last year a minister in the OPSS, says that Waldegrave should beware of
being seduced by the logic of a big idea. ‘I’m sceptical,’ says Jackson.
‘This is the pure doctrine of the internal market. What is going to be the
effect on science?’

Eileen Buttle, acting chief executive of the Natural Environment Research
Council, wonders what the job of a civil research agency would be. ‘I can’t
see what its mission would be,’ she says. ‘It’s not focused.’

The Efficiency Unit is under pressure to produce change for its own
sake, says the chief scientist at one government department. The trouble
is that ministers will have less control over research which is done for
them, he says.

Last week, the Efficiency Unit confirmed that it is seeking change.
‘Across the board, the status quo is rarely an option,’ it said in a statement.
‘A scrutiny is undertaken when it is seen that something is not quite right.’