STFC(2012)20
MINUTES OF THE FORTY SIXTH MEETING HELD AT
1.00PM ON 27 MARCH 2012 AT THE RUTHERFORD
APPLETON LABORATORY
Council Members
present:
Michael Sterling (Chairman)
Gill Ball (phone) – in part
Martin Barstow
Marshall Davies
James Stirling
Ian Taylor
Will Whitehorn
John Womersley
Dept Business, Innovation Jeremy Clayton
& Skills (BIS):
In Attendance:
Gordon Stewart (Director, Corporate Affairs &
Executive Secretary to Council)
Jane Tirard (Finance Director)
Sharon Cosgrove (Director of Strategy)
Mark Foster (Council Secretariat)
Hina Padhiar (Minutes Secretary)
Apologies:
Julia Goodfellow
Mike Healy
Peter Knight
Tony Ryan
1.
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
1.1.
The Chairman welcomed attendees to the meeting. Gill Ball was joining
the meeting by phone. Apologies were received from Julia Goodfellow,
Mike Healy, Peter Knight and Tony Ryan. In attendance were Sharon
Cosgrove, Jane Tirard, Gordon Stewart, Mark Foster and Hina Padhiar.
1.2.
The Chairman reminded members that this was an informal meeting,
outlined the timing and asked for any other business items to be
discussed at the end of the meeting. Martin Barstow wished to discuss a
consolidated grants issue and John Womersley wished to give updates
on the recent ESO Council Meeting, SKA, ISIC, CERN, Diamond and the
forthcoming Triennial Review.
1.3.
The Chairman also reminded members that following the current
meeting, Council will move to holding six formal meetings per year,
and asked members to make every effort to attend in person.
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2.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AND REGISTER OF INTERESTS
2.1.
The Chairman asked for any declarations of conflicts of interest and
reminded members of the need to keep the Executive Secretary
informed of any changes to their personal register of interests.
2.2.
Martin Barstow and James Stirling wished to register that the University
of Leicester and University of Cambridge were involved with DIRAC.
3.
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING - STFC(2012)16
3.1.
The Chairman noted that Draft Minutes of the February Council meeting
plus the Draft Redacted Minutes were circulated on 21st March.
3.2.
The Draft Minutes were agreed to be a correct record by Council and
signed by the Chairman. The Secretary’s note for item 17.1 was noted
as a change to a matter of fact recorded at the meeting.
3.3.
Members asked that caution should be exercised with the redactions
made to the minutes for publication and noted examples that did not
require redaction. John Womersley stated that it was important for the
minutes to note that Council had discussed each item and understood
the consequences of actions being taken. Gordon Stewart and John
Womersley were to revisit the redacted minutes and recirculate to
members for approval.
Action: Gordon Stewart/John Womersley
3.4.
The Chairman reminded Members that the Actions List would be
reviewed at the next formal Business Meeting in May.
4.
2012/13 BUDGET APPROVAL - STFC(2012)17 – Some
references in this section have been redacted as
commercial-in-confidence
4.1.
Jane Tirard presented details of the STFC 2012/13 Budget for approval
by Council. She stated that STFC were ahead of where they usually were
historically for allocations to Directors. At the February Council she had
stated that there was a difference of £5.8m to resolve for Core
Programme and £5.4m of significant issues to be resolved in specific
areas.
4.2.
Jane outlined the actions taken for the significant issues on the Core
Programme and to solve the gap since the last Council meeting:



Review of the Core Programme spend and requests;
A further analysis of Corporate Services Directorate, with an
upcoming full review to be carried out by the new Executive
Director, (Marshall Davies and Jane sit on the Project Board for
the Review with Gordon Stewart);
A further review of discretionary spend;
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

Impact of new Capital threshold – awaiting an analysis of
2011/12 to see what departments will need to absorb within their
resource budgets;
Work to be done to create headroom for the unexpected.
4.3.
Jane presented the details of the Total Resource Budget, which was
broken down by the Drayson Partitions and a separate Admin
allocation. There was £4.3m available to meet identified pressures. She
also presented a breakdown of the Resource for, International
Subscriptions, Facilities, Core Programme, Enabling Functions and
Reserves as they stood before the new organisation was established
and the Earmarked Reserves for Programme and Administration.
4.4.
Jane reported that the Executive had met a number of times to discuss
and understand the funding requests and she had also discussed with
individual directors. The Executive were comfortable with the outcomes
to date and had agreed on the items to be funded and those that could
be partially funded. Generally reserves had been earmarked and
expectations were that Technology will be able to find additional
income generating work for some of the currently unfunded staff and
so releasing funds for other areas.
4.5.
Gillian Ball asked if the budget had been balanced due to the use of
reserves. Jane replied that these were not reserves, as in funding
brought forward from previous years, but rather currently unallocated
2012/13 funds.
4.6.
In setting the CSR 10 allocations via the Large Facilities Steering Group
(LFSG) Marshall Davies noted that in the past, other Research Councils
had not understood how much their researchers used STFC facilities
and asked if Jane was happy they had understood the consequences of
the figures Jane had presented (i.e. ISIS operating for 120 days without
all instruments). John Womersley replied that there was no flexibility to
change the overall resource allocation for facilities in the current CSR
period and he believed that the other Councils understood that.
4.7.
Will Whitehorn requested for Council to see a breakdown of Directorate
budgets and Ian Taylor agreed that this would be useful in a format
where Council could subsequently see variations. Jane Tirard clarified
that once the numbers were agreed, they will be transferred to the new
Directorate structures and Council will be asked to approve the budget
again at the next meeting in May. There was still some movement to be
made at this time.
4.8.
Jane Tirard clarified that “Admin costs” covered Finance, HR, back office
admin, some Estates plus SSC. She stated that there were some
inconsistencies in the definition of Admin applied across the Research
Councils and discussions were taking place to establish uniformity.
4.9.
Jane also clarified that the earmarked £4.3m as part of the Resource
Enabling Functions was a figure not yet allocated to Directors. It was
suggested that it would be better to use “contingencies” to describe this
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in future. Jane stated that this would need to be monitored closely so
that mid-year decisions could be made on allocating this reserve.
Additional money was allocated for issues around stabilisation of SSC.
4.10. Marshall Davies reported that the Audit Committee had concerns about
the impact of other organisations joining SSC. Jane Tirard added that in
order to make the admin figures work the SSC spend and therefore
service charges needed to come down. Jeremy Clayton responded that
stabilisation of SSC was expected to be in June/July and the BIS partners
were expected to join in the autumn. SSC was expected to deliver
savings across the BIS family and active discussions were taking place
on this issue.
4.11. Jane Tirard also reported that STFC were very short of Capital budget
and she detailed how the budgets were allocated. In answer to Jeremy
Clayton’s question of a recently allocated £9m for Capital, Jane clarified
that this was for the refurbishment of building R1 at RAL and she was
waiting a formal allocation before including. Jane Tirard concluded by
outlining the current known financial risks for Resource and Capital.
She also outlined the next steps in the process which were to embed
the detail budgets in Hyperion, deal with the impact of the senior
management reorganisation and to issue delegation letters by the end
of March. A programme of work is currently underway to update the 10
Year Financial Plan.
4.12. Jeremy Clayton advised that it was important to have sophisticated
“levers,” especially in the second half of the year, to slow down or
accelerate spend. If one Council was struggling to spend, then it could
be possible for another to accelerate. Jane Tirard agreed and stated that
good buy up and buy down lists were important for this to be
successful. Gill Ball noted that the implication by BIS in a letter to HEFCE
that there was flexibility in balancing resource across BIS, Research
Councils and institutions, had not been seen before. Jeremy Clayton
went on to clarify that it should be noted there was a science ring fence
around resources in Research Councils and institutions. The capital
budget was for the whole of BIS so more open and they had taken
advantage of this recently to free up additional money. It was not an
option to help out across the BIS family for ring fenced resource
budget. He stressed that an under spend was not good.
4.13. Council approved the 12/13 Budget, noting that subsequent changes
will be seen by members as they happen. John Womersley stated that
this was the first time the budget had been set before April and
thanked Jane and her team for their hard work in making this happen.
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5.
2012/13 OPERATING PLAN – STFC(2012)18
5.1.
Sharon Cosgrove presented the draft 12/13 STFC Operating Plan
circulated to members on 23rd March. She noted that John Womersley
had wanted the Operating Plan to be aligned to the new senior
management structure and this would be the case in future years but
the recent changes to the management structure had prevented this on
this occasion. Michael Sterling thought it reasonable that more time
was allowed to finalise the plan given that the new Executive Directors
would not start in their new posts until 1st April and looked forward to
receiving a final version for approval at the next Council meeting. In
light of this, Sharon asked Council for approval for the direction of
travel of the draft Operating Plan.
5.2.
Members gave feedback on the format of the draft Operating Plan,
including the request for an Executive Summary which highlighted the
important factors from the more detailed version, and reference to the
other documents in the Strategy chain (e.g. STFC’s Vision) to clarify that
the Operating Plan details how the objectives will be delivered. Sharon
stated that the Operating Plan was a largely internal document so
consideration could be given in the future to having a separate format
for an external audience. She also clarified that there were some areas
such as the National Laboratories and Business and Innovation, which
needed more detail as they would be established as new Directorates
and that this will be rectified before the next Council meeting.
5.3.
Members agreed that they would like to see the new Executive Directors
articulate their visions and plans to Council. This would be scheduled in
the agenda for the May Council meeting. Action: Council Secretariat
5.4.
Council approved the approach to the 12/13 Operating Plan, which
would be presented again at the May Council meeting.
6.
ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP FAIR – STFC(2012)19
6.1.
John Womersley presented the main issues for Council to consider in
order to endorse the UK’s Associate Membership of FAIR.
6.2.
John Womersley presented the background to the Associate
Membership status. The UK was participating in the construction of the
NuSTAR experiment at FAIR in Germany. Participation in FAIR is the
highest priority of the UK nuclear physics community as established in
the 2009 Prioritisation Exercise. FAIR will be the flagship European
facility for nuclear physics when it begins operation in 2017/18. STFC
was funding a contribution to the construction of the NuSTAR
experiment at FAIR but not the construction of the accelerator. The
contribution to NuSTAR is not large enough for the UK to be a FAIR
shareholder. The FAIR Council had established an Associate
membership status and invited the UK to consider becoming a member.
6.3.
John described the Associate membership status - STFC would be
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entitled to attend FAIR Council and all governing bodies as an observer,
with the right to speak but not vote and would be required to
contribute to 0.5% of the facility operating costs starting in 2017. This
amounted to roughly £700k per annum.
6.4.
John explained the risks and benefits of the UK becoming an Associate
member, beginning with the nuclear physics community considering it
strategically important and the Science Board’s support of this view.
Associate membership would ensure that the UK’s inclusion in
management discussions for future operations of NuSTAR on which
£10m had already been invested by STFC. John confirmed that
discussions had taken place with BIS who were supportive.
6.5.
John described the main financial risk was spending commitments
beginning in 2017, for three years of operating costs which was outside
the current CSR period and that in this context BIS would have to
provide final approval in consultation with HMT. Jeremy Clayton stated
that all signs indicated that the next spending review would be tougher
than the last and this should be borne in mind when making such
decisions. John Womersley reported that he thought the financial risk
was manageable and proposed proceeding to associate membership
especially in the light of Science Board’s support.
6.6.
The Chairman stated and Council agreed that Council could not accept
the statement presented by the Nuclear Physics community in Annex 2
of the paper that had been circulated to Council, in that funding FAIR
would be guaranteed not have an effect on other Nuclear Physics
programmes. It averred that communication with the community
needed to highlight the financial reality that taking on associate
membership would potentially be at the expense of other Nuclear
Physics commitments in the future, in particular if future CSR rounds
were to be tight.
6.7.
Council endorsed the case for the UK to become an Associate member
of FAIR but made it clear that the overall financial envelope for the STFC
nuclear physics programme remained the same and should money be
short in future, the cost of joining as an associate member would have
to be met at the cost of other programmes. John Womersley stated that
the Executive would be stressing the caveats of Council’s approval to
the nuclear physics community, at a town meeting the following week.
7.
SENIOR MANAGEMENT RESTRUCTURING UPDATE
7.1.
John Womersley updated Council on the senior management
restructuring and the appointments to date of the new Executive
Directors.
7.2.
The position of Executive Director of Programmes would be advertised
externally during April.
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7.3.
John stated that the new appointments had been announced to STFC
staff and he went on to detail the appointments status for the next
level, the Heads of Departments. Barbara Ghinelli would be moving to
ISIC fully on secondment, with some of her staff, from 1st April.
Corporate Services would undergo a review in the coming months,
which may bring some more restructuring. Each Executive Director had
been asked to review their Directorate but only Corporate Services were
to have a formal review with an external panel. Jane Tirard had already
done a review and the new Finance structure was already established.
7.4.
The establishment and recruitment of a new Head of the new Scientific
Computing Department, created from e-Science and Computational
Science and Engineering was reported.
7.5.
John reported that the new Executive Directors would be holding an
away day on 13th April and that the new team would be travelling
around all the sites to ensure they were fully visible to staff.
7.6.
Council noted the update and John thanked the Council members who
helped with the appointment process.
8.
ADVANCED LIGO AND INDIA
8.1.
John Womersley reported to Council on the Advanced LIGO project
where a project change was proposed.
8.2.
John reported that STFC had invested in the LIGO project which was to
detect gravitational waves. There was a plan for one of the three
interferometers to be moved to India from Washington State, USA.
Science sensitivity would be improved due to the move and India was
able to provide a suitable site. As the UK had contributed to the project,
the UK was requested to agree to this redeployment before it could take
place. John explained that there were no additional financial
commitments and clarified that the STFC’s investment was coming
towards its end.
8.3.
Council agreed to the move.
9.
ADDITIONAL BUSINESS – some references in this section
have been redacted as commercial-in-confidence
9.1.
Consolidated Grants - Martin Barstow raised concern that a potential
consequence of the new Consolidated Grants system was that it could
result in the removal of a co-applicant’s name from a consolidated
grant award if no post-doc or FEC was awarded to that applicant. This
seemed an administrative issue but in effect it could have significant
detrimental effects on individuals’ career progression and was in
contradiction to the principle of rolling grants whereby allocations were
made to collaborative groups rather than individuals. John Womersley
stated he was aware of the particular issue raised and had asked the
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appropriate project manager resolve the particular case, but he would
pursue this further now he was aware that it had not yet been resolved.
It was recognised that the situation in general was an unintended
consequence of implementing the new system and needed to be
avoided in future. Martin offered support in helping resolve the systems
issues that caused the problem.
Action: John Womersley
9.2.
ESO Council - John Womersley reported that, following discussions at
the February Council meeting, he had taken the principles of entry to
the E-ELT project to the ESO Council meeting. It was too early for most
members to make the commitment at present however, and a delay to
the decision to September or October was very likely due to the
Brazilian delay on ratification.
9.3.
SKA – The recommendation of the site for SKA had been given to SKA
members and a meeting was scheduled at Schipol the following week to
discuss next steps.
9.4.
ISIC – John Womersley reported that he had had attended a meeting
with BIS, UK Space Agency and Iain Gray of TSB, to discuss the new
Satellite Applications Catapult Centre about which he now had reduced
concerns over the potential risks, as discussed in previous Council
meetings. The desirability of any TSB investments being coherent rather
than repercussive to the UK as a whole had been accepted.
9.5.
CERN – John Womersley reported that CERN Council had decided to
extend the current Director General’s contract for two years. He also
reported that a CERN Business Incubation Centre (BIC) was being set up
in the UK, at the Cockroft Institute building at DL. This was similar to
the ESA BIC at Harwell and would be run by STFC on CERN’s behalf and
involve technology transfer professionals working alongside accelerator
and detector scientists and engineers. It would be the only one of its
kind in Europe and was welcomed by Council.
9.6.
Diamond Light Source – John Womersley reported that the
advertisement for the Diamond CEO post was due to be published
shortly for recruitment by the end of September. John stated that he
would be a member of the interview panel and that candidates would
be approached globally. The salary for the post would be agreed by the
DLS Board and would need to be cleared by BIS, but Marshall Davies
confirmed that this had not yet been discussed.
9.7.
Triennial Review and CSR –Jeremy Clayton stated that it would be
prudent to prepare carefully for the triennial review.
9.8.
UK Space Agency – Will Whitehorn reminded Council that there had
been an action for a paper to be brought to Council on the relationship
between UK Space Agency and STFC. Council agreed that David Williams
would be invited to a future Council meeting. Ian Taylor suggested that
a meeting in a run up to the next Ministerial would be good timing.
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Action: Council Secretariat
9.9.
The next Council meeting was scheduled for 29 May 2012, at RAL.
The meeting closed at 3.00pm.
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