Institutes celebrate budget ‘freedom’

Jane Francis, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, says she hopes the chancellor’s decision to grant research council institutes “new budget freedoms” will make it easier for them to employ top researchers.

The government’s plans, announced by George Osborne in the 2015 budget, will enable institutes to break through the 1 per cent cap on pay rises. Francis, who has lobbied for greater flexibility, told Research Fortnight that the devil would be in the detail. “The salaries that government research institutes can offer are not particularly competitive with universities or industry,” which has made it difficult to recruit top-quality scientists, she says. She adds that another of the changes, which makes it possible to roll over commercial income beyond a single year, will give the institutes more ways of pursuing financial sustainability.

Institutes will be given more freedom to manage their pay bills within their existing budgets; an exemption from procurement controls for high-end scientific computing; an exemption from some procurement controls for marketing and advertising; and more freedom in how they use commercially earned income.