§ Mr. Baldryasked the Minister for the Civil Service what are the arrangements for making awards to inventors who are civil servants or public sector employees; and if he will make a statement.
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§ Mr. LuceThese arrangements form part of the model Civil Service suggestions scheme and are set out in detail in the "Civil Service Pay and Conditions of Service Code", a copy of which is in the Library of the House. Awards may be made in recognition of benefits to the Crown, derived either through direct use of an invention by a Department or through the exploitation of the invention outside Government. Three modifications have recently been made:
- (a) the commercial exploitation income, by reference to which any award is calculated, will henceforth be assessed in ways that take account both of inflation and of cases in which actual income to the Crown is less than the gross commercial exploitation income;
- (b) the number of tranches in the sliding scale on which awards are made has been reduced and the value of tranches will be indexed against inflation, in order to restore them to, and maintain them at, the levels originally intended;
- (c) inventors may be paid awards in instalments when exploitation is spread over a number of years.
These modifications will maintain awards made in respect of commercial exploitation of inventions at the levels originally intended and encourage greater awareness of the need for more effective transfer of such inventions into industry.