Case Study - Defra: Met Office Hadley Centre Review 2006

Client: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
Sector: central government
Services delivered: overview , providing assurance , evaluation

Risk Solutions lead a multidisciplinary team to deliver the recent fundamental review of the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change Research on behalf of Defra and the MoD. This comprehensive review addressed:

  • the excellence of the scientific research carried out
  • the relevance and utility of the research to policy makers, and the extent to which needs of policy makers were considered in designing strategy
  • the processes used to manage the research programme and delivery of individual research themes, with particular reference to governance issues, and
  • organisational culture.

The conclusions of the review were generally very positive. The Met Office Hadley Centre is currently internationally regarded as one of the leading climate modelling centres in the world, and in general it is providing high quality, fit for purpose outputs focused on the customers’ requirements. The UK Government’s leading role in international climate change policy has been strongly supported by Hadley’s world leading status and Hadley’s stakeholders value this international standing. The report made a number of practical recommendations to ensure that the Centre could continue to deliver world class, policy relevant science into the future.

We also recommended that the UK Government take a strategic decision about the value it places on the Met Office Hadley Centre’s world-leading status. Other governments around the world are developing their climate science capabilities, so for the UK to remain ahead of the rest of the world will require an increase in resources, in real terms, particularly in the area of supercomputing.

The final report is available on Defra’s website at randd.defra.gov.uk.


FOR MORE INFORMATION:

RELATED SERVICES:
RELATED SECTORS: