In reply to neilh:
I'm delighted to see Mr Cummings' late conversion to seeing the benefits of parliamentary scrutiny, and I look forward greatly to his next promised appearance to give his side of the story about the government's covid response. It goes without saying that his account will be self-serving, but I think it's much better that the whole sorry history gets discussed, than the government gets its wish, that we just forget about the whole nightmare and move on.
On the specific questions he was discussing yesterday, on science funding and bureaucracy, I don't think he's entirely wrong, but much of the problem has been inflicted by governments in the last ten years. In the 2000's, the research councils were largely left to get on with things, with a great deal of institutional autonomy and an obscure location in Swindon away from the attention of Whitehall.
That began to change in the Coalition years, when the research councils ended up beginning to accept what turned out to be a Faustian bargain, receiving some cash injections at the price of much more direct political influence, especially from Osborne's Treasury. Then the 2015 Conservative government introduced the Higher Education and Research Act, which rolled up the research councils into a single organisation, UKRI, much more directly under government control, and subjected to much more Treasury-driven process.
A big element of the story of Cummings' time in government was his attempt to assert on behalf of no 10 more power over the Treasury (beginning with the sacking of Savid Javid and the installation of the joint No 10/Treasury SPAD team). But he lost.