Science Minister Lord Drayson has today spelled out new arrangements for the Science and Technology Facilities Council designed to ensure that it can plan with greater predictability and provide its community with more stability.
These will include better management of pressures arising from international subscriptions (such as CERN), and longer-term planning and budgeting for large domestic facilities (such as Diamond). These two measures will address the two main sources of uncertainty STFC faces.
Following STFC’s reprioritisation exercise establishing the Council’s funding priorities in December 2009, Lord Drayson undertook to work with Professor Michael Sterling, STFC’s Chairman, to resolve structural issues putting undue pressure on the Council’s finances.
Lord Drayson said: “There is no doubt STFC faced a difficult situation. A lot of work has gone in to finding ways of preventing such pressures rearing their heads again in future. The better management of international subscriptions through measures to manage exchange rates, and longer-term planning and budgeting for large domestic facilities will allow STFC’s grant-giving functions to be managed with a higher degree of predictability. The community has come out strongly in support of grants remaining with STFC to deliver investment continuity from facility design through to exploitation, and I accept this argument. These measures will allow the Council to pursue the programme it set out in December within its budget.”
