§ Mr. Dellasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is her estimated expenditure for 1971–72 on non-departmental research projects ; what requirements she imposes regarding publication and consultation before publication ; whether deletions or alterations 119W have been required or permission to publish refused in respect of all or part of any project whose results were submitted to her Department during the last 10 years ; and to what extent she controls entry for research purposes to depart-mentally-controlled institutions.
§ Mrs. ThatcherExcluding the funds made available to the Schools Council, Research Councils etc., which are administered directly by them, I estimate that my Department will spend £1,297,000 on extra-mural research in the year 1971–72. This figure includes expenditure in respect of the Department's general educational research programme, projects sponsored by the Office for Scientific and Technical Information and those undertaken on the advice of the Council for Scientific Policy.
Because of the ways in which these different responsibilities have arisen and grown, the conditions under which projects are authorised have tended to vary. Those within the general educational research programme are subject to the submission of results before publication, mainly for the joint benefit of researchers and the Department so as to avoid factual errors ; no specific consultation before publication, is required by O.S.T.I.; and in the case of projects undertaken on the advice of the Council for Scientific Policy the publication of results requires my previous authority. The publication of any work based upon official information requires departmental authority; the results of such work are also subject to crown copyright and it is our usual practice to make this explicit in the commissioning arrangements.
It would involve disproportionate effort to determine the extent to which, if at all, permission has been refused during the last ten years but to the best of my knowledge this has not occurred. If entry to an establishment is required in the furtherance of research it will normally be granted.