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Colleagues, A brief summary of the replies to my `survey' on central Statistical Advisory Services follows. My thanks to all those who responded and my especial thanks to those who provided much extra information. Replies were received from 27 UK Universities and 3 Antipodean! Of the 27 UK institutions, 13 have a centralised statistical advisory service and 13 do not. The remaining one consists of a single post which is currently vacant. Additional comments indicated that there was a tendency for `management' to view such services as soft options for cuts. All three institutions from `Down Under' had such a service. At least 4 of those in the UK without a service used to have one and one of these was particularly interested in the replies to my survey because it was thinking of starting a new service and wanted ideas about how it might best be funded! In many of the replies there was an air of quiet despair about how the service had deteriorated because of poor management decisions and financial pressures. One reply displayed frank indignation that his proposal for a such a service had been rejected. He went on to say that "HE in this country is a mockery and a shambles." Sadly, he added that he had applied for voluntary severance. For those that had a service, the following were the complement of A/AR staff employed. Asterisks indicate missing values. UK: 0.4,1.6,1,6,4,2,*,4.6,4,1,*,2,1 Ant: 0.5,1.5,1 There was too little information on other staff to be able to proceed further. On the question of the funding of the service in the UK institutions, 3 were funded centrally, 3 by cost recovery from research funding and 4 by a combination of the two. One was commercially self-supporting. The remaining two did not provide sufficient information to make a judgement. From Australia and NZ, one was funded by cost recovery from research funding and two by combination. However, further comments were very revealing. Straight cost-recovery from client departments was found to be difficult or unworkable and, in order to provide a viable service, institutions found that (however the service was funded) it needed to be free at the point of use. Once again, my thanks to all who responded. I hope that the feeding back of this information will be of help to other institutions. Allan -- Dr. Allan White, Statistical Advisory Service, University of Birmingham Tel. 0121-414 4750 or 44750 (internal), Email [log in to unmask]