Speeches

Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the running costs were for the 56 capital based science projects which his Department has funded for each year since 2007, referred to in the NAO Report entitled BIS’s capital investment in science projects, HC 885, published on 10 March 2016; and what the projected running costs for those projects are for each year to 2020-21.

Joseph Johnson

Running costs for 2014-15 for the 56 projects are given in Appendix 3 of the NAO Science Capital report where facilities are operational. These figures come from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and its Partner Organisations and provide an indication of annual running costs of these projects.

Project level management and allocation of funding for the majority of ongoing science projects is done at Partner Organisation level, in accordance with the delivery responsibilities of the Partner Organisations BIS funds. BIS does not hold this level of information centrally and it would not be possible to collect this information for each of the years since 2007, and estimates for future years, without disproportionate cost. However, the Government has protected the science and research budget in real terms in the 2015 spending review to ensure science spending remains on a sustainable footing and continues to deliver world-class research.