Miles Parker - Freemen Centre, University of Sussex, March 16, 2012
Miles Parker (DCSA, Defra; Associate Fellow Centre for Science and Policy, University of
Cambridge)
Title
ON TAP OR ON TOP? THE EVOLVING ROLE OF EXPERTISE IN GOVERNMENT POLICY
MAKING
Abstract
The Government response to the Rothschild and Dainton reports of 1972 established a paradigm
for the relationship of Government policy makers with the science community based on a
conception of the “intelligent customer”. The nature of that relationship has evolved in
subsequent years, most notably under the influence the Thatcher Government’s Near Market
reforms in the mid 1980s and of the public response to BSE and the conclusions of the Phillips
Inquiry (2000). I will explore the relative roles and impact of in house and external expertise, and
their evolution, in the experience of Defra and its predecessor departments.
Bio
Defra’s Director for Strategic Evidence and Analysis since 2002 (managing Defra’s policy and
investment programme for science), Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser and internal Head of
Profession for Science and Engineering.
Graduated in zoology, PhD in marine ecology, from Trinity College, Dublin. Managed marine
pollution unit and undertook research on marine environmental issues at the Department of
Agriculture and Fisheries in Dublin,1975-83. Head of research and operations on marine
pollution from waste disposal at sea at MAFF’s Directorate of Fisheries Research (now CEFAS)
1983-7. While in Dublin and at DFR, chairman of several of the marine environmental working
groups of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and at the Oslo and
Paris Commissions (OSPAR). Head of MAFF food contamination and biotechnology policy
branch in 1987. Head of the Agri-Environment Unit at MAFF Chief Scientist’s Group (CSG) in
1988. Cabinet Office Science Secretariat 1991. Head of the MAFF CSG Science Division,
managing agriculture and fisheries research programmes until 1997. Acting Director of Food
Science at MAFF’s Central Science Laboratories (CSL, now FERA) and managing ownership of
MAFF’s Laboratory Agencies in 1998. Director for International Science at the Office of Science
and Technology 1998-2001, mainly on negotiations of EU Framework Programme 6.
Fellow of the Society for Biology. Associate Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Science and
Policy.