Minutes of UK CMS Meeting; 11 July 1996, RAL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Present: K Bell (RAL), R Brown (RAL), D Cockerill (RAL), J Coughlan (RAL), G Davies (ICSTM), P Flower (RAL), G Hall (ICSTM), W Haynes (RAL), R Head (Bristol), G Heath (Bristol), H Heath (Bristol), P Hobson (Brunel), B Kennedy (RAL), D Newbold (Bristol), G Patrick (RAL), U Schaefer (Bristol), M Sproston (RAL), S Watts (Brunel) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Minutes: B W Kennedy / RAL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) Outcome of PPESP on 8th July 1996, and progress towards the first UK CMS Management Committee meeting. DC reported on a conversation with George Kalmus. PPESP have "drawn a line" under CMS and ATLAS as long as the "optimised scenario" remains valid. GK will get the terms of reference of the Man. Com. from Ian Corbett by early August. The first meeting will probably be in September, to establish the format of future meetings. RB commented on the proposed composition of the Man. Com. Budget holder / UK contact person Bob Brown ECAL/trigger convener Dave Cockerill Tracker/daq convener Geoff Hall IC representative Bill Cameron until David Britton (newly appointed lecturer) takes over Brunel representative Derek Imrie or Steve Watts Bristol representative Greg Heath Mechanical Engineer John Connolly Electrical Engineer Marcus French and presumably GK and a secretary. 2) Prototyping and experimental expenditure in 1996/97. 3) Contributions to the CMS common fund. 4) Expenditure in 1996/97 These items were discussed together. DC presented the current position in the optimised scenario, which will be the basis for the interim memorandum of understanding. Item Mpounds =----= =-------= ECAL + trigger 3.06 Tracker + daq 3.40 Common fund 1.79 --------------------------- Total 8.25 The common fund contribution is calculated as 3.7MSf for the magnet and offline computing needs, at an exchange rate of 2.0674Sf/pound. RB pointed out that the official CMS money matrix allows 200 kSf for equipping the UK ECAL regional centre, which may be insufficient to cover the full cost. GHa asked whether prototyping expenditure expected in 1996-2000 is strictly for prototyping, or the development of the actual detector. RB replied that only spending on, e.g., final prototypes which could in principle be used in the detector will be credited in the cost book. GHa commented that the tracker prototyping is unlikely to be finished by 1997-98. RB said that there may be some extra money available this year (within the same total). However, we in the UK are not actually allowed to undertake capital expenditure before next year's review, and we should try to minimise expenditure on non-capital items such as prototyping, since this is not credited to us as a contribution to CMS in the cost book. A possible solution might be to make an extra contribution to the common fund this year, thus freeing extra funds in later years. RB showed "Annex 10", detailing the expected UK contributions of 150kSf for the magnet in 1997, plus 200kSf for the regional centre. A new development is that Alain Herve would like to start some magnet construction work in 1997 which is not allowed for in the current budget. If this is approved, the UK could be asked for an extra 300kSf for the common fund in 1997. The UK CMS award for 1997 is 390 kpounds. GK would like to increase this, and reduce the award in subsequent years accordingly. There are some advantages in putting the extra money into the common fund; the current exchange rate is fairly favourable, and CERN has interest-earning accounts. The question is whether PPARC would accept a larger than pro-rata common fund contribution before authorisation has been given for UK participation beyond the pre-sonstruction phase of CMS. RB will attempt to find out before the next Resources Review Board in October. 5) VAT recovery on items for CMS. JC has studied this question. In order to qualify for VAT relief, CMS must be declared an "International Collaborative Project". Goods purchased for CMS need not be exported, and VAT is recoverable on all expenditure on materials and services for the final "deliverable". CERN must assume ownership of purchased items. VAT can be recovered retrospectively to 1 April 1996. Universities' spending is NOT covered, even if subsequently recharged to a RAL account. Only expenditure through designated RAL cost codes will be free from VAT. Peter Norton will discuss the scheme with Naudi (CERN finance) to find out CERN's attitude. 6) Manpower allocations in Technology Dept. and use of requisition funds. Hans Hofer has asked whether the UK ECAL group can add one or two extra design engineers. There is no funding available for this in current planning. They are not needed immediately, but extra effort may be required when the design is more advanced. DC estimated that about 5 person-years may be needed, at a cost of approximately 250 kpounds. RB stressed that institution manpower costs do not appear in the cost matrix, which only covers capital expenditure and some hired manpower. 7) Office space allocation in building 40 at CERN. There were many complaints about the inadequacy of the office allocation. In particular, no lockable office was allocated to Bristol/Brunel. It seems essential that each group should have access to a lockable office, and not just floor space in the open area. 8) Keeping an overview of UK applications for CERN associate positions. This item was discussed because Richard McClatchey has applied for a CERN associateship, ,and RB wanted to know if he would be in competition with applications from UK CMS institutions. RB has been asked to write a letter of support to Jim Virdee and Martii Pimia. After some discussion, it was decided that he should express the approval of the ECAL group, but it was not appropriate to write on behalf of the whole UK CMS group. The case is unusual, in that UWE is contributing to CMS through is association with Bristol University, rather than as an independent institute, and so it would be helpful to state that Richard McClatchey had the support of the ECAL group. In discussion of the general principle, GHa said that it was already hard enough to get an Associateship, and there was no reason to add an extra level of UKCMS approval as well. RB stressed that it would be useful to keep track of applications, but there was no question of formal "approval" by the UK CMS community. 9) CERN vans. GHa had received a memo from Mary-Elizabeth raising the frequent use of PPARC vans for CMS, and suggesting that vans might be hired directly from CERN at 20Sf/day. RB agreed to set up an account for this purpose. Ideally this would be a proper Maintenance and Operations account, to avoid spending the CMS allocation on vans and phone calls; however, this might be politically difficult for an experiment which is not yet running. Failing this, a pseudo-M&O account could be set up using money from our existing allocation - preferably the "travel" element if GK would agree. 10) Coordinating the purchase/type of PCs/workstations for the CMS UK groups. BK presented the RAL policy, decided by the RAL computing group. New desktop machines will be PCs running Windows-NT, unless a very strong case is made for a Mac or a UNIX machine. The PCs will run X software in addition to standard word-processors and spreadsheets. It is almost impossible for the RAL CMS group to disregard this policy, as no central support will be available for computers or peripherals bought directly by experimental groups. DN remarked that WNT is completely inconsistent with CERN, which is standardising on X-terminals and Macs. DC said that we have two X-terminals available at CERN, which is clearly not enough. There was general agreement that 2-3 more should be bought so that each group has at least one. It is assumed that the groups will all contribute money from non-CMS sources for this purpose. AOB) RB had received a letter from Akram Khan, who has been working with the CMS group in Madrid, and is looking for a CMS job with a UK group. In addition, RB's position as the UK representative on the CMS management board was due for reselection. After a flood of alternative candidates failed to come forward, RB was reelected for another term. Date of next meeting) To be arranged before the first working meeting of the Management Committee.