Definitions of R & D : report with evidence.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
Date:
1990
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Definitions of R & D : report with evidence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/148 (page 90)
    8 February 1990] [Chairman contd.] view of the number of qualified scientists and engineers you employ in R&D, but most of the answers we have got to that suggestion state that it is not a very good way of assessing the innovative value of your staff. What are your views on that? (Mr Mumford) I think it rather depends what you are seeking in your choice of data. If the emphasis is on the availability of manpower resources for particular purposes, the number of scientifically and technically qualified staff is a major factor. We certainly use allocations of senior scientific personnel—SSPs as we call them—and they are widely used in the MOD to define a particular effort of research and they are a useful indicator. We are the first to recognise that is not an indication of the total resources going into that area; you have to take into account the supporting facilities. A clever scientist cannot operate outside his laboratory, without being in a secure environment in our case, and it is all part of the scenario. We certainly find allocations of SSPs to a particular area are a useful management tool. I would not want to put it further than that. Lord Gregson 268. You will be aware that OECD have been carrying out a major review of Frascati, where the Cabinet Office was acting as co-ordinator. I presume you have taken part in that? (Mr Lomas) We feed our thoughts through to the statisticians who represent the Government presently in the Central Statistical Office on the usability of the Frascati Manual, so, yes, we are in touch with our statistical colleagues and are having an input to that study. 269. That was only one leg, the other leg was the scientific appraisal of Frascati which was co- ordinated by the Cabinet Office. We have had evidence on this. I presume you have taken part in that part of the exercise, on the quality of the definitions? (Mr Humphries) 1am not aware we have. I do not think one can fault the Frascati definitions as ideals to aim for. 270. The British Government have gone further than that, they cannot fault the Frascati definitions and that is what they will stick to. (Mr Humphries) Our problem is associated with — 271. I do not understand why are you hedging all your replies on Frascati, as though it is something the British Government do not like and it is something they wish to push away? (Mr Mumford) No, we say we base our R&D figures on the Frascati definitions. That is not necessarily expressing a view either way. The OECD has been collecting international data on that basis. Lord Kearton 272. Would you think the Frascati definitions are sensible when it comes to dealing with defence expenditure? (Mr Mumford) We do not rely on them exclusively and entirely for our own internal accounting control purposes. [Continued Lord Gregson 273. Your own internal figures? We couldn’t care less about your internal accounting, what about your external accounting? (Mr Mumford) In order to present our R&D figures as a department to the world at large we extract figures as best we can, with our interpretation of Frascati, from accounting blocks of figures which have been devised for our financial control purposes. Our control system was not based on Frascati but we do our best to extract Frascati from it. That is quite an important point. Lord Flowers 274. You are saying that the Frascati definitions are sufficiently imprecise that you can legitimately allow political considerations, let us say objectives of Government in that sense, to launder very considerably the figures you write down— legitimately? (Mr Mumford) 1 am not saying that, no. I do not think that interpretation could possibly be put on anything I have said today. 275. You said different countries might interpret — (Mr Mumford) Countries have different systems, my Lords. I do not think they are necessarily influenced by political considerations. We regard this as a Statistical exercise or problem for us. We do not think we are injecting policy considerations into it. We try in good faith to do the best job we can to present our figures in accordance with the Frascati definitions. 276. I thought you said other countries did that? (Mr Mumford) I did not actually say that. Did you? (Mr Nicholls) What I said was that other countries have different approaches and there are all sorts of reasons for that. I was not suggesting they were political. Chairman 277. Perhaps the difference is that what we are saying is that different countries classify certain things which are in aid of defence research under civil research, whereas we are terribly strict in maintaining that all our defence research is carried out through the MOD accounting system? (Mr Mumford) That is right. 278. To go back to this point of the discrepancy between what the MOD says it spends extramurally in industry on defence research and what industry says is spent, the first reason given, which you quoted from the Annual Review on R&D, was that the industrial survey—that is the DTI industrial survey—is directed to enterprises with 200 or more employees but there is no lower limit in the data collected in the Government survey. Have you any indication of how much of your extramural research and development is done in firms with less than 200 employees? (Mr Lomas) We do not have a figure for the research and development expenditure. We have a figure for total procurement.