From Dianne Stilwell, NC3Rs

Re: Transfer of NC3Rs grant administration to the Research Councils’ Shared Services Centre

In your news article of 27 October you linked the transfer of the NC3Rs grant administration to the Research Councils’ Shared Services Centre to a National Audit Office report into the SSC. We would like to point out that the transfer of NC3Rs has been planned for over four years. The ‘announcement’ referred to in the news article was made in routine correspondence to our grant holders and grant applicants to remind them that, as with any new way of working, there might be some delays in the transition to the new system. The decision to transfer to Je-S and the SSC had nothing to do with the National Audit Office report into the SSC and was made well before this report was published.