The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation

My newly launched report on how we can safeguard the independence of our important scientific and evidence-generating institutions - not least so they can hold government to account

Over the past five months, I’ve been working with Prof Martin McKee (some of you will remember him from Indie SAGE!) and researcher Luke Flynn on a project to map out the vulnerabilities of the UK’s key scientific independent bodies to political interference. Today our report is launched!

We found that the UK’s top scientific institutions, from the Met Office to the UK Health Security Agency, have inadequate institutional defences to prevent potential political interference. When it comes down to it, if an incoming government wanted to weaken the role of science and evidence in policy making, it could do so shockingly fast.

Which independent bodies and why we started this project

When key functions of the state need specialist expertise and freedom from political pressures, the UK has historically turned to independent organisations or “Arm’s-Length Bodies”, to deliver these functions.

We studied 24 ALBs in detail, ranging from those driving science that supports policy (e.g. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)), to those with powers of scrutiny and delivery (e.g. Natural England, Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR)), to bodies publishing official data in a way that holds Government to account (e.g. Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)).

From the Office for National Statistics to the Met Office, from the Medicines and Healthcare Regulations Agency to Natural England, from the Food Standards Agency to UK Research and Innovation, these organisations have their roots in a requirement for expertise and national need. They have evolved to perform critical functions in keeping our population safe and well, in generating and publishing evidence to hold governments to account, and to drive innovation through research.

President Trump’s second term has highlighted how a combination of ideologically appointed leaders, slashing of budgets, and restrictions on information sharing, can rapidly undermine the function of equivalent institutions in the US, from the Centers for Disease Control to the Environmental Protection Agency. The US experience has shown quite how vulnerable agencies can be when a government determined to undermine them gains power.

We asked the question: how resilient are our equivalent bodies in the UK and their core functions to potential political pressures?

What we found

We mapped the current structure of key independent bodies, threats to their ability to carry out their duties free from political interference, and the broader democratic framework under which the UK operates. We also carried out public polling to understand how UK citizens perceive these bodies and their role in a democratic and modern society.

We found a vulnerable, fragmented system with a hotchpotch of arrangements for each independent body. This is in part because they are often created, changed or destroyed piecemeal without an overview of how they contribute to a democratic and functional state. We identified core components that can upset the delicate balance between operational independence and democratic accountability:

• Is a body established in law?

• Who appoints its leadership?

• Is a body directly accountable to parliament?

• Who sets its priorities?

• Who controls its funding?

• Is it free to publish without ministerial say-so?

The Met Office, for example, is not only the nation’s weather forecast service, it also supports world-leading climate change science through its Hadley Centre and is a core contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, the Met Office is highly vulnerable to a government seeking to suppress climate change research; ministers fund its research, influence its priorities, and appoint its leaders. With no statutory basis, its priorities and funding could be shifted away from climate change science with little parliamentary or public oversight.

Other ALBs have different constellations of vulnerabilities. So far, these vulnerabilities have largely not mattered, as there has been a broad consensus across successive governments regarding their value as pillars in specialist areas. So, as long as the Government supports the purpose of ALBs to provide independent advice or policy delivery for the state, these vulnerabilities are not existential. But that is changing wth the rise of authoritarian populism across democratic societies. It’s analogous to living in a castle with holes in the walls, unlocked gates or weak foundations. These don’t matter if no one attacks you, but once they do, you might wish you’d patched the vulnerabilities while you had the chance.

Below we show the map of vulnerabilities for eight key bodies: Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, the Food Standards Agency, the Medicines and Healthcare Regulation Agency (MHRA), the Met Office, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Natural England, and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Of these, ONS has the most independence across all domains, while others are much more vulnerable to political interference. All but ONS have ministerially appointed leadership; five are accountable to parliament only through their ministers, three could be abolished rapidly with no oversight as they have no statutory basis, and one must first clear its publications with the Ministry.

Overall, we’ve highlighted the gaps in ALB defences that an incoming government with an agenda to undermine their function may exploit, whether through promoting policies that lack evidence or science-based foundations, or by weakening their ability to hold the government to account through independent scrutiny.

Strong public support for independent oversight

We carried out exclusive polling with More In Common and it confirmed that the public strongly favours independence for arms-length bodies (ALBs). Seven in ten Britons (71%) say it is more important for ALBs to be independent of the Government than controlled by it, with majorities supporting independence for ALBs regardless of their political party affiliation.

Seven in ten Britons (68%) also believe external agencies should be able to hold government to account and deliver core functions without political interference. A clear majority supports ALBs being free to publish without ministerial sign-off, and most want appointments made by independent expert panels rather than ministers.

How can we strengthen the independence of key scientific ALBs?

We suggest seven initial recommendations for further discussion. These proposals should be seen in the context that ALBs vary in form and function, and some recommendations are more applicable to some than others. We hope that these recommendations will evolve into firm policy proposals, specific to sets of ALBs defined by their function.

i. Increasing legal and statutory protection

To enhance legal and statutory protection for ALBs, Parliament should expand statutory underpinning where needed, especially for ALBs involved in regulation, scrutiny, or advice.

ii. Supporting independence in leadership

The Civil Service should adopt appointment procedures that limit the direct involvement of ministers. That said, ministers should set the strategic direction of a post and build effective working relationships with those appointed.

iii. Resilient funding models

For certain key ALBs, sponsoring departments should safeguard medium-term funding by expanding multi-year funding settlements to support sustainability and delivery and build on experience with existing practice.

Parliament should introduce statutory safeguards requiring parliamentary approval for major budget cuts to key ALBs.

iv. Strengthening accountability

Parliament should strengthen accountability by requiring ALBs to produce parliamentary accountability reports, which the National Audit Office would review.

There should be improved procedures for select committee scrutiny, where necessary. Plain language summaries of reports should be made available on ALB websites for the general public.

v. Setting priorities and safeguarding operational autonomy

Ultimately, priority setting must reflect a balance between democratic oversight, the public interest and institutional independence.

Ministers and civil servants responsible for setting priorities for ALBs should seek to safeguard operational autonomy by defining the boundaries of ministerial influence.

vi. Protecting the freedom to publish

Legislation should protect the right of ALBs involved in scrutiny, regulation, or public health to publish independently, without needing the prior consent of ministers, limiting any ministerial oversight to ensuring factual accuracy and legal compliance.

Plain English summaries should be produced for outputs to support transparency and accountability to the public.

vii. Framing the national conversation

To engage and frame the national conversation, ministers should publicly support the ALBs for which they are responsible and avoid using pejorative language or creating politically motivated bodies.

Next Steps

Our next steps are to hold a series of policy roundtables with representatives from ALBs, civil service, government, policy and legislative experts to take these recommendations forward. This includes identifying the full list of ALBs that have a scientific or evidence generating role, and then refining these recommendations into concrete policy proposals to safeguard their independence from potential political interference. Ultimately, we want to mend our castle wall defences before it’s too late.

The full report is available to read here.