5 April 2010
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council has had its accounts for 2009/10 qualified because it failed to include the finances of two associated bodies in them.
National Audit Office head Amyas Morse yesterday said the Institute of Food Research and the Babraham Institute, which deals with bioscience and health, should have been included in the main accounts under International Financial Reporting Standards because the BBSRC had powers to appoint and dismiss their board members.
Morse said it was irrelevant to this requirement that the research council chose not to use these powers and allowed both to be effectively independent.
The council intends to move all its associated institutes to an independent governance structure from this month.
The NAO had no other objection to the accounts.
In a statement, a council spokesman said: ‘BBRSC has never before consolidated the accounts of the institutes, which are independent charitable companies limited by guarantee, and considered that it would not be cost-effective to report the accounts of the Babraham Institute or the Institute of Food Research, especially as all BBSRC institutes will be moving to a completely independent governance structure from April 2011.
‘BBSRC has already provided the full details of this to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.’
The council spent £402.8m on research and capital grants in 2009/10.
