‘The “doom and gloom” being spread about the state of UK physics and the funding of research is unhelpful and paints an inaccurate picture, says Keith Mason. The chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council claims the likely fallout from its spending settlement has been exaggerated’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7200456.stm

What world are you living on - still in Holmbury St Mary perhaps?

Look at the redundancies, the high quality research grants that will be rejected, the demoralisation of your own staff in Swindon, and the appalling situation that has been allowed to develop whilst you were our representative, and the decimation that will occur in many areas of astronomy - whoops … STFC reprioritisation … pardon my incorrect terminology …

It is clear that a clear that a clean out at the top of STFC is the only real way forward now

To quote Prof Mason … ‘we are in this situation, so lets just get on with it’. Fine, thanks for those great words of support, just what we wanted to hear from you, a great way to marshal your troops around you.

But does there really remain much confidence within the community that the present Senior Management at STFC are the right people to lead Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Astronomy out of the problem. The woeful lack of communication with the community as the crisis developed was dressed up in STFC-speak as being due to the need to act fast, and that it was adequately discussed with Committees. However, this has already been refuted by some members of those same committees (see Paul Crowther’s web page and the Jan 8th Guardian), leaving it difficult to believe anything we are told from STFC now.

Maybe it’s time to stand back from this shambles and to take a fresh look at the future, and also to look inwardly, and outwardly, at who should be brought in to take the community forward. Should the community really seek to change personnel at the top now – should senior Management just be allowed to get on with it? There are arguments for this that they already know something about the system – but there is also so much angry sentiment in the PP, NP and Astronomy communities that enough is enough – and a resignation that we have been left exposed in the present situation by inadequate leadership (however STFC want to dress it up) that did not manage to contain the situation at an early stage in the development of the crisis. Maybe the best way forward now is just to have a clean sweep and regroup. Is this going to happen – well many people are talking about this privately – but everyone is worried that by putting their heads above the parapet, they will be the first to suffer. Perhaps it is time to appeal to the people involved at STFC to do the right thing to allow everyone to move forward