For information MANAGEMENT BOARD MEETING OF 16 NOVEMBER 2000

The Director-General briefly reviewed the items examined by the Finance Committee at its meeting on 8 November. The Committee had begun by hearing an oral status report by Dr J. Bezemer, the Chairman of TREF, covering the Forum's meeting on 18 October and the ensuing first meeting of the Restricted Tripartite Group on the Employment Conditions of the CERN Personnel the following week. In the same context, the Finance Committee had examined the Management's document on the funding options for the five-yearly review and for the request for additional manpower resources, which had been submitted to TREF in October, taking note that the discussions on the five-yearly review package would continue in the framework of the restricted group. The Committee had further approved the proposal to adjust the variable subsistence indemnity on the basis of the United Nations 2000 rates with effect from 1st January 2001, as well as six contract adjudication proposals and a proposal to authorise CERN to negotiate an amendment to its 1999 partner project agreement with the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC), Moscow, concerning the supply of crystals for the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. Finally, the Committee had been informed of the decision taken by the Directorate earlier that day not to agree to a request from the LEP collaborations for a further year of LEP operation and had taken note of the Management's intention to request the CERN Council to confirm the start of LEP dismantling in a special resolution (see separate item later in this report).

The Director of Administration, M. Robin, recalled that the informal, restricted tripartite group chaired by Dr Bezemer had been set up by TREF at its October meeting with the aim of reaching a compromise solution for the ongoing five-yearly review for submission to the Finance Committee and Council in December 2000. In the course of its three meetings to date, the group had reviewed all aspects of the Management's proposed review package (see http://doc.cern.ch/tref-170.pdf for details), as well as the proposal set out in the Management's funding options document to finance the package using the difference in 2001 between the 2% indexation planning assumption for the personnel and materials budgets and the actual indices granted. Although no compromise had been reached at that stage, some encouraging progress had been made thanks to significant efforts by all three parties, and the discussions were proceeding in a constructive atmosphere. A fourth and final meeting of the restricted group had been scheduled for 24 November, the results of which would be presented to TREF on 30 November in preparation for a final decision by Council in December.

The Director-General informed the Management Board that the data collected by the four LEP experimental collaborations during the month's extended run ending 2 November had been presented at a special LEP seminar and to the LEP Experiments Committee (LEPC) on 3 November. The results obtained had been consistent with the production of Higgs particles at a mass of around 115 GeV/c2, with a significance of just below three standard deviations, which had led to a request from the four collaborations for a further four- to six-month extension in 2001 to consolidate the data. If the observed events were indeed due to a Standard Model Higgs, such a run, designed to collect about 200 pb-1 at a beam energy of 104.1 GeV, would allow the significance of the signal to be increased from 2.9 to 5.2 standard deviations if the Higgs mass were 115 GeV/c2 and from 2.6 to 4.3 standard deviations if the mass were 116 GeV/c2, with an estimated error of about + 0.5 standard deviations. However, running LEP in 2001 would have an inevitable impact on the LHC schedule, causing a significant delay for both the machine and detectors of about one year and involving extra costs estimated at some 110 MCHF.
The case for an extension into 2001 had been extensively debated by both the LEPC on 3 November and by the Research Board four days later but the discussions had not been conclusive in either case. The LEPC had considered that a LEP run in 2001 was justified taking only LEP into account but, given the impact on the LHC, had been unable to reach a consensus to recommend an extension. Weighing up LEP considerations and the consequences for the LHC schedule and resources, the Research Board had also been unable to agree on a recommendation to the Director-General. The matter had therefore been referred to the Directorate for a decision. On 8 November, taking account of the unavoidable associated delay in the LHC programme, the additional costs and the risk of not achieving a conclusive result by the end of an extended run in 2001, the Directorate had, with much regret, unanimously decided not to accept the request of the LEP collaborations, maintaining that the best way to address Higgs physics was to pursue the scheduled programme. Considering that a matter of such importance should not be decided without an explicit statement from the Member States, the Management had decided to request the Council to confirm the start of LEP dismantling and, in that framework, an extraordinary meeting of the Committee of Council had been called for 17 November to discuss the issue.
The Management Board took note of the information provided by the Director-General regarding the decision taken by the Directorate not to accept the request to run LEP in the year 2001 and of further statements by the LHC Project Leader, L. Evans, confirming that such an extension would effectively result in delaying LHC physics by about one year. It was agreed that an appropriate channel would be found to inform the staff of the outcome of the Committee of Council's meeting at the earliest possible opportunity.