Leave scheme lost to FEC

The story on full economic costing ("Cheques and balances", 19 June) understandably makes little mention of the arts and humanities. However, one important unintended consequence of FEC concerns the Arts and Humanities Research Council research leave scheme. This provides small amounts of money for replacement teaching for researchers for short periods of time, thereby funding a huge amount of research as well as creating temporary teaching posts. The scheme is highly efficient and hugely popular among academics. We were told at the subject association meeting with the AHRC in May that the research leave scheme must be scrapped despite all this, because it is incompatible with Treasury rules about FEC.

James Ladyman, Department of philosophy, University of Bristol.