Revolt as ESRC cuts backbench rebellion project
The Independent and Guardian today reported that the Economic and Social Research Council is cutting funding to Revolts.co.uk, Professor Philip Cowley’s project that tracks backbench rebellions.
These cuts come at a time when parliamentary dissidence is likely to prove more interesting than ever. In the last Parliament, the site analysed every backbench rebellion from the Terrorism Bill to the Digital Economy Act – revealing which were just the usual suspects and which were something more.
The site was used religiously by Parliamentary correspondents and academic researchers alike.
Its grant for the 2001 Parliamentary term was just £111,940.04, a tiny fraction of the quango’s £204m research budget.
But while the ESRC’s budget is seemingly too tight to stretch to funding this cheap-but-popular project, the tight times haven’t yet stopped the ESRC directors upping their pay.
While the senior civil service endured a pay freeze, ESRC accounts reveal CEO Prof Ian Diamond took a £5,000 pay rise in 2008/09, taking his pay to a respectable £140,000 – more than Revolt’s full grant.
Director of research Adrian Alsop and communications director Astrid Wissenburg also took home above-inflation pay increases of 4.5%, bumping their salaries into the £65,000 to £70,000 range.
Still, as the ESRC nervously awaits Cameron’s promised “bonfire of the quangos”, cutting a service which monitors rebellions might not prove a bad decision for the ESRC – especially as the coalition already faces trying to repeal the Human Rights Act.
