§ Mr. John Huntasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are his plans for the future of research in the Home Office.
§ Mr. WhitelawMy Department has reviewed its arrangement for research and scientific development. In the light of this review I have decided to make two major changes. First, the scientific advisory branch and the police scientific development branch are to be amalgamated to form a scientific research and development branch. Secondly, the role of the Home Office research unit is to be reformulated and it is to be merged with the crime policy planning unit and some operational research staff from the scientific advisory branch to form a research and planning unit.
The amalgamation of the scientific advisory branch and the police scientific development branch is expected to lead to economies in staff and facilities. The new scientific research and development branch will be located in the Home Office police department, but effective arrangements will be made to enable the branch to provide for the needs of other customers: in particular, home defence, the fire service and prison security.
The new research and planning unit will be a multi-disciplinary body, comprising about two-thirds of the existing research staff, some scientists and some administrative staff. Criminological research and the publication of research studies on the present basis will continue to be a major responsibility of the new unit, and the new arrangements will not affect the funding and support given by the Home Office to extra-mural research. The work of the unit will however be more closely associated with the formulation and monitoring of policy. This will be achieved partly by grouping it with the criminal departments and partly by outposting some of its staff to other departments of the Home Office: in the first instance, the prison department, the police department and the community programmes and equal opportunities department.
These changes will achieve economies in the use of resources and improvements in organisation. They will involve some reductions in staff complements, particularly in the research group. These will be fully discussed with the Department's trade union side, who were consulted in the course of the review on which my decisions have been based.