Part V - TRAC fEC

Section D: Estimating other costs

Laboratory technicians

12. Laboratory technicians’ costs may be directly incurred or directly allocated. They can be charged as:
    • directly incurred (with timesheets supporting these charges)
    • directly allocated (a £/FTE basis might be a useful way of ensuring that costs are all charged to projects)
    • part of the laboratory estates cost (but not after 1 August 2007).
13. Technicians and other non-academic staff who are dedicated to a project should be classified as directly incurred. They may be working in laboratory or non-laboratory departments. Their time should be charged against each project according to actual time worked on that project. If they are working on only one project, then this charge might be done in a way similar to RAs (i.e. through a direct posting from the payroll).
14. If they are working on more than one project then the charges should be made from timesheets – records of time spent on each project. These should be at least quarterly and it is good practice for them to be counter-signed by their manager.
15. The level of resource required on a project for directly incurred costs will need to be justified in the case for support in a Research Council grant application.
16. All other laboratory technicians should be directly allocated, no later than 1 August 2007. Prior to that date their costs can be included as part of the estates charge, or directly allocated as a separate item. These are staff who provide services to more than one project, or provide an infrastructure service to the department as a whole. Charge-out rates are applied, for example on a £/FTE basis. See Part IV Laboratory technicians.
17. Costs charged to projects on a standard percentage of salary basis should only be classified as DA cost, they should not be DI.
18. Other support staff can be classified as directly incurred, directly allocated, or left in the indirect or estates rates. However, if they are DI or DA, then the above requirements apply.