UNITED KINGDOM
The United Kingdom’s Chief Scientific Adviser says the country’s Public Service is suffering from a lack of scientific talent that threatens its ability to compete with nations such as China.
Sir Patrick Vallance (pictured) said a dearth of scientists and engineers in Government posed major problems for the nation as it attempted to deal with the threats of climate change, an ageing population and tightened national security.
He is backing a major push inside the Public Service to boost numbers of science and engineering graduates.
“This is the one thing in my tenure that I want to get fixed,” Sir Patrick said.
Appointed to the post two years ago, Sir Patrick said he had found there was a massive weighting of individuals who had backgrounds and degrees in arts, humanities, and economics inside Government.
By contrast, those who were trained in science or engineering were in a distinct minority.
“Consider the Civil Service Fast Stream scheme, which encourages the brightest young people to become senior Public Servants,” Sir Patrick said.
“Out of 400 of those who were accepted to the scheme in 2017-18 only around 40 had degrees in science and engineering – that is unacceptably low.”
He said there was a need to get that figure up to around 200 out of 400 if the United Kingdom was going to be capable of dealing with the issues of the 21st century and affect ways of thinking across Whitehall.
“If you look at a country such as China, you find its Government is full of individuals who understand science and technology,” he said.
“That is not the case with Britain.”
“So it is essential that we put things right,” Sir Patrick said.
London, 14 January 2020
