Members of the Senate’s Economics committee posed some tough questions to CSIRO Executives in Canberra recently, with the scrutiny firmly focussed on cuts, jobs and funding.
With Chief Executive Doug Hilton absent on scheduled leave, it was left to Deputy Chief Elanor Huntington to lead CSIRO’s testimony, alongside Executive Director Peter Mayfield and Chief Operating Officer Tom Munyard amongst others.
Elsewhere, Science Minister Tim Ayres was in the hot seat on Canberra radio where he received a grilling on the ongoing cost of CSIRO research cuts.
“In order to put CSIRO onto a sustainable footing over the coming decade, we would, unfortunately, need to crystallise the savings that came from the strategic portfolio review that we did last year and crystallise the savings that came from a reduction of 300 to 350 staff and that we would need to work to find an additional, at least, $80 million to $135 million per annum over the next decade,” Dr Huntington said.
However, subsequent responses to questions on the potential for future cuts where anything but crystal clear.
“Over the medium term, as I’ve said, this injection of funding gives us the confidence to step into the sustainability agenda, and we make our research portfolio investment decisions off the back of a rigorous prioritisation process, as well as what our funding trajectory would look like, and we need to hold space for prioritisation as we move into the future.”
“But, as I’ve said, we are now in a position to be able to stabilise the overall scale of our workforce, which gives us the opportunity that, if we were to prioritise some areas, we could now re-invest in those higher priority areas, rather than needing to crystallise savings,” Dr Huntington said.
After another go, the picture started to improve.
“We are confident that we can hold our overall workforce (over the medium term). I think the thing to say here is that this injection of funding allows us to move away from the kind of pace and scale of changes that we’ve been experiencing over the last few years, which is a relief to all of our people and to all of us,” Dr Huntington explained.
However, there was still a little wiggle room, or holding space, left.
“We will always hold space to run research prioritisation processes. If we choose to deprioritise some areas, we are now in a position to be able to reinvest in higher priority areas as we go forward. As I said, the pace and scale that we have been moving at, will now significantly temper,” Dr Huntington said.
“How much space are you holding? What’s your wiggle room?” asked ACT Senator David Pocock?
“Sorry, that’s a turn of phrase… every year, we will look across our research portfolio to make sure we are tuned appropriately to make sure that we are optimising for maximum impact,” Dr Huntington replied.
Senator David Pocock also turned his attention to term employment.
“How many employees have contracts due to expire in the next six months?”
“I might have to take that on notice,” replied Mr Munyard. “We have approximately 1,000 staff as term employees at the moment, but I don’t know how many of those have an expiry in the next six months. I’ll have to take that on notice.”
“Has CSIRO undertaken any analysis of capability loss arising from nonrenewal of term contracts? Have you done that work?” Senator Pocock continued.
“You’ve got a thousand people on term contracts, and I assume there’s a mix of some pretty impressive skills and capability amongst those thousand. Have you looked at what it would mean in terms of the loss of talent from CSIRO if you’re not able to renew those thousand?” Senator Pocock asked.
“We’ve been actively extending, renewing and looking at new terms as well as letting terms lapse as they reach the end of that contract. We do that on the basis of the capability that we need to deliver against the project portfolio,” Dr Mayfield replied.
“So it’s this whole concept of having the right capability to deliver against the objectives that you’re trying to do. It’s a dynamic thing. It’s always going to keep changing. That’s part of the equation that we’ve got around how we prioritise capability, trying to make sure that we’re bringing in the right people and retaining the right people as best we can within our constraints,” Dr Mayfield said.
Tasmanian Senator Peter Whish-Wilson zeroed in on external earnings.
“The word ‘prioritising’ has been thrown around a lot tonight, and I was wondering: are we still prioritising scientists seeking external revenue to help cover the costs of their research? Is that still a cultural priority at CSIRO?”
“Are you aware of criticisms that have been raised with this committee, multiple times over a decade, about this growing culture at CSIRO? It’s been going on for decades now to increasingly put pressure on scientists to find external revenue,” Senator Whish-Wilson said.
“I think we heard in the last hearings from scientists that said it might have started at 30 or 40 per cent of their budget, and, in some cases they said it was up to 90 per cent of their costs that had to be covered by finding clients, you know, monetising their research. Are you aware of that? Senator Whish-Wilson asked.
“We heard some of that evidence at the (CSIRO funding inquiry) as well,” Dr Huntington replied.
“There were a range of positions put, as I understand it, as part of the testimony there, some of which were assertions along the lines that you describe and some of which were actually assertions where folks said that engaging with external stakeholders allowed them to understand the nature of the problems that they were interested in and to get a good sense of the research,” Dr Huntington said.
Weeks later, Science Minister Tim Ayres faced some tough questions of his own when he sat down for an interview with ABC Canberra’s Ross Solly.
“In the Budget, you provided around $387 million extra for the CSIRO over four years. Just to clarify something, did you expect that money would help save some of those 350 jobs or not?” Mr Solly asked.
“Well, these are, you know, quite separate questions,” Minister Ayres responded.
“Since I’ve been appointed as the Minister, it’s been very clear to me that there is an effort that is required here to secure sustainability of the CSIRO. It is a really important institution for Australia. The CSIRO itself has been going through separately a reprioritisation of their research effort,” Minister Ayres said.
“When you say reprioritisation, do you think that would happen, though, if they had the funding to do what they want to do? Because it seems to me, talking to people within the CSIRO, that there are a lot of very worthwhile projects that have been scrapped or watered back, not because of reprioritisation, but because they just don’t have the funding, Tim Ayres, to do it anymore,” Mr Solly enquired.
“If the Government was providing additional funding to the CSIRO and nothing was changing, in order to match the science priorities that Australia has and that the organisation has set out for itself that would be unacceptable,” Minister Ayres replied.
“We need the CSIRO match fit, focused on the priorities that Australia needs. And of course, that has meant there’s been a process that has been very rigorous and broad ranging process… hundreds and hundreds of staff have been engaged in this effort,” Minister Ayres said.
“And hundreds and hundreds of staff have lost their jobs. When critics say, Tim Ayres, that under your leadership and under your Government, the CSIRO has actually shed more jobs than they did under Tony Abbott’s leadership,” Mr Solly said.
“That’s right, isn’t it? If you crunch the numbers, if you look at it, that’s true?” asked Mr Solly.
“Well, there’s an additional, well over $600 million of funding that I pointed out there,” Minister Ayres replied.
“I’m just wondering though, if the CSIRO though is being forced to close areas which maybe might actually backfire on us,” Mr Solly continued.
“For example, I understand they’ve got a fire testing centre in Ryde which did some great work after the Grenfell disaster in the UK. They did a lot of testing of all the flammable cladding and everything in Australia. They provide advice for the Government.”
“I understand that their contract finishes in December and a decision has been taken not to renew it and that will leave Australia with just one fire testing centre in the whole of the country. That can’t be a great outcome, can it? Have you heard about that?” Mr Solly asked.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Minister Ayres replied.
“The principle that they have been engaged in here is making sure that there’s no duplication of effort that they’re engaged with the other science organisations around the country, and that their effort is focused on the priorities that now that does mean there are really good people, really good scientists and researchers who will be doing different kinds of work.”
“Some people will enter the organisation, some people will leave,” Minister Ayres said.