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Further reading □ OverviewContents1. Background and introduction2. Executive summary3. The case for the Programme4. Technical content and targets5. Cost and funding6. Management of the Programme7. Human resources8. Summary of RecommendationsAcknowledgements
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Further reading

Overview
Contents
1. Background and introduction
2. Executive summary
3. The case for the Programme
4. Technical content and targets
5. Cost and funding
6. Management of the Programme
7. Human resources
8. Summary of Recommendations
Acknowledgements

6. Management of the Programme

The Directorate

6.1 This Section sets out how we see the programme being managed and operated. We are convinced that the prime requirement is for a dynamic management style with the management being allowed a large measure of discretion. But this must be balanced against the need for proper financial accountability because of the large sums of public money involved. We propose that there should be a new Directorate with the authority and flexibility to expedite the programme and manage it effectively. The Directorate should be part of the DOI to provide a direct line of financial accountability and also to harmonise the programme with other DOI programmes for IT. The Directorate must be dedicated to the implementation of the programme and must have the resources to achieve this.

6.2 We considered the concept of a central technical organisation responsible for managing the programme and for conducting a large part of it. We rejected this because the programme must be carried out as far as possible by organisations capable of using and exploiting the results of the programme, to ensure maximum industrial relevance. Thus the Directorate should be slim and compact. For a programme on the scale proposed at least 15 professional staff will be needed. In charge will be a Director who will need to be an experienced technical manager with a proven programme management track record in this field. The ability to work with, and through, a wide range of other organisations will be essential. The Director will need to be recruited for the post and, to attract the right person, a competitive salary will need to be offered. He should be appointed on a fixed term contract probably for five years. The Director will need proper authority within DOI The post should be graded at least at Under Secretary level and should provide direct access to Ministers.

6.3 Inherent in our concept of the Directorate is the conviction that the programme cannot be implemented effectively unless one man is held ultimately responsible for its management. The Director should be given this responsibility. He should have full authority for negotiating, placing and terminating contracts. He will possess delegated authority for spending public money. His performance will be judged against his achievement of programme goals. He should structure the programme so this can be measured.

The Board

6.4 To provide accountability he should report to a Board, which would serve as a steering committee, and which would supervise the overall strategy and management of the programme. An analogy is that the Director would be equivalent to the MD of a company, and the Board his board of directors. The Electronics and Avionics Requirements Board (EARB) provides the basis for this Board. It should be given the task of steering the programme. This may well require some restructuring of the EARB, involving the transfer of its responsibilities for avionics to another Requirements Board, and strengthening MOD's and SERC's representation.

6.5 The Director would consult with the Board on his overall strategy, and present annual plans and programmes which he would initiate. Once the Board had approved these, the necessary funds for the year ahead would be made available. At the end of the year performance would be reviewed and the plan for the following year assessed in the light of this. There would be consultation in between these annual reviews. However, it is vital that the Director has the freedom to get on and run the programme. He must not be subjected to interference in day-to-day operational matters from the Board or by anyone else. Otherwise the programme will founder.

Organisation

6.6 The Director will be responsible for the internal organisation of the Directorate. We are attracted to a matrix pattern of organisation with Assistant Directors as the senior level of management, each of them responsible for a specific technical sector and for a function common to all the sectors, e.g. dissemination or academic programmes. The Assistant Directors would need to be expert authorities in their respective technical areas. The senior management team must be state-of-the-art in IT and most will have to be recruited from outside Government. Some might well be seconded from SERC and MOD to provide a link with these departments. At least one of the senior management should be a civil servant familiar with the administration of publicly funded projects. There would need to be arrangements for the management to be kept up to date in their technical fields. We favour either short-term contracts or a system of planned inter-change of personnel between the Directorate and outside organisations. It is essential that the Director has under his own control all the resources and expertise needed to run the programme, particularly his own contracts, finance and patent specialists, and his own office support; and that he has the freedom to recruit these staff as necessary. To this extent the Directorate should be an autonomous unit within DOI.

6.7 The proposal for a small Directorate is based on the premise that the programme will be executed through other organisations. The Directorate will co-ordinate and manage the programme as a whole; fulfil a range of important strategic functions; and set and award contracts. The larger contracts may call for management by prime contractors, using other organisations, including universities and small firms, as subcontractors. This concept provides for a relatively small central organisation, with involvement of other bodies, and a flexible and adaptive management style. MOD's Components, Valve and Devices Directorate (CVD) is the closest analogy in this country to the Directorate in terms of function and management philosophy; though in scale and technical coverage it is not a direct match.

Implementing the Programme

6.8 The main task of the Directorate will be to ensure that the technical programme is effectively implemented and its targets met. To achieve this the programme must be driven firmly from the centre. The Director will work with industry and with other technical experts, but he must have sole responsibility for project specifications and for the award of contracts. We are convinced that tight direction of the programme is the only way of ensuring effective implementation and of achieving the swift action which is necessary. A responsive approach of waiting for outside organisations to submit proposals would fail to provide sufficient momentum.

6.9 The Directorate must work to carefully structured milestones and targets to provide effective management and control. These will be formulated by the Directorate and approved by the Board. In Section 4 we identified the prime technical targets for each of the headings of the programme. The programme cannot be totally managed under these headings. It must also reflect the strong interdependence between them. To compartmentalise it would weaken each of the individual elements and synergy between them. There must be clear targets for each technical sector and firm control over specific projects, combined with maximum interaction between sectors.

Judging bids

6.10 As stated the Directorate will operate through prime contracts. It will draw up contract specifications and be responsible for the award of contracts. Decisions must be the Directorate's alone, on the basis of advice from panels of technical experts. As far as possible existing panels should be used, such as EARB working groups, and MOD and SERC committees. There must be full industrial representation on these panels. In judging bids the priority must be the programme's overall objectives of improving the UK's basic technical capability and competitiveness in IT. There are several important sets of criteria, including:

  1. compliance with the specification; technical competence; and cost, ie standard criteria for the letting of technical contracts;
  2. the commitment and capability of the bidder to exploit commercially the results of the work if it is technically successful;
  3. the aim of securing maximum collaboration and participation in the programme, particularly on the part of small innovative businesses, and the widest possible dissemination of the results and their exploitation by the UK IT industry.

The application of these criteria will not be straightforward and the Director will need to exercise considerable judgement. He must have the fullest possible autonomy.

6.11 In Section 3 we emphasised that the basis of our programme was that it should be a UK national effort. It is against the above criteria and the overriding objective of strengthening the UK's technical capability and competitiveness that the participation of foreign multinational companies located in the UK must be decided. Our firm view is that foreign multinationals should qualify only where they can contribute a particular asset vital to the programme; where the results of their involvement will be available to the benefit of UK industry as a whole; and where it is guaranteed that valuable technical information will not leak from the UK. Without these conditions the programme will be undermined.

6.12 A prime task will be to generate the best possible grouping for each project. It is futile to try to compel collaboration when the parties are unwilling, but there is ample scope for creative brokerage between organisations with complementary strengths. Our current effort is far too fragmented. Many separate organisations are active in the field covered by the programme, each with insufficient resources behind them and with too little mutual contact. The Director will have to pull together this diffuse effort. He cannot afford to support every organisation separately. This is fully consistent with maximum involvement of small firms.

6.13 In certain areas there should be competitive approaches. Again this is consistent with consolidating our effort. A large number of the projects could benefit from being tackled simultaneously from more than one angle. The best approach will not always be known in advance. Competition in research is potentially highly stimulating and should be encouraged, but it will need to be carefully managed to avoid fragmentation of effort. Industrial Property Rights (IPR) also have a bearing here, and these are examined below.

Monitoring

6.14 The Directorate will have to make arrangements to monitor projects. It will not have enough staff to do the job itself and will need to make use of third parties. These could be drawn from academic, research and industrial organisations. The approach should be to set up projects with measurable technical targets capable of being monitored, and to conduct regular technical audits against these targets. Monitors will need to have sufficient authority to discharge their responsibilities for safeguarding taxpayers' money. However, they ought not to have the power to require variations to projects; for this the Director's decision should be required. Monitors should report to the Directorate but, in exceptional cases if they feel the Directorate is failing to act on monitoring reports, they should have the opportunity to refer to the Board.

Dissemination

6.15 The Directorate will also be involved in disseminating the results of the AIT programme in order to promote commercial exploitation. Exploitation must take place in a competitive environment. The Directorate should encourage early and widespread exploitation and should ensure that there is maximum information available concerning the programme, so that there is the widest possible opportunity for exploitation. This will require conferences, publications and other forms of communication.

Industrial Property Rights

6.16 A workable framework for Industrial Property Rights (IPR) is essential for the programme. This is a complex issue. However, there are two principal objectives: collaborative participation in the programme by UK industry, and full dissemination of the results to UK industry. In the case of industrial projects the basic principle should be that the company which conducts the work shall own any IPR arising. This is necessary to encourage industrial involvement.

6.17 The scope for dissemination will depend upon the level of Government funding. Some work should be 90 per cent Government funded. In this case the company concerned will own the IPR but should make the results available on a free, irrevocable and non-exclusive licence basis to other UK companies. Other work will be 50 per cent Government funded, in which case the company should be required to make the results available for licence only if it does not intend to exploit them itself. 50 per cent funding will apply to work, the dissemination of which will tend to be less relevant than in the case of work 90 per cent funded. Licensing or sub-licensing to non-UK companies should not be permitted without express clearance by the programme Directorate, but this should not be withheld unreasonably.

6.18 Companies will usually start a project with prior knowledge potentially relevant to that project. They must declare this prior knowledge and make it licensable on fair and reasonable terms to other UK companies, where it is needed by them either to participate in the project or to make use of its results. If this prior knowledge is the property of a third party, who is unwilling to release it, then the suitability of the first company to perform the project is immediately in question. There is an element of 'rough justice' in this proposed treatment of prior knowledge inasmuch as the value of prior knowledge contributed will vary, but any more potentially equitable arrangement is likely to prove unworkable and to lead to delay. Under our proposal the detailed terms on which prior knowledge is to be licensed can be negotiated after a contract has been placed and work is under way. The basic principle is that the release of prior knowledge is the price the company pays for being awarded a contract.

6.19 The Directorate should actively disseminate information on the availability of licences arising from the programme to ensure maximum exploitation. This dissemination should be targeted so that companies likely to be interested in exploiting particular results of the programme can be sure of being informed. This will probably involve the Directorate keeping a register of the product and technology profiles of UK IT companies.

6.20 The whole subject of property rights relating to work conducted in academic and Government establishments is currently under review. We propose that the rights arising from work carried out under the AIT programme be managed by the Directorate, and that the results of this work be licensed on the same basis as proposed for industrial work.

6.21 Full circulation throughout the UK research community of information arising from the programme should be encouraged. This is essential for real progress to be made, but in exceptional cases there may need to be controls over allowing commercially sensitive information out of the country. It would be a mistake to cut ourselves off from exchanging research with other countries.

6.22 The EEC ESPRIT programme will involve its own IPR rules. We understand that these rules have yet to be fully formulated. Ideally the IPR framework for our programme should be compatible with that for ESPRIT to allow interworking between the two programmes.

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