Imperial College London back at top of research council income table

Does Imperial add £114 million plus of value for the grant money it gets? I am sure it does, but the problem with articles like this, and tables which use grant money as a comparator is that it affirms the view that research income is an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, that end being good research. We need to revert to considering grant funding an input rather than an output; and looking who makes best use of their inputs, not simply saying those who get the most of it are better than those who don't. Indeed, perhaps the best research institutions are those that do a lot with very little money. These are the real research stars. Perhaps someone can correlate the forthcoming REF results with research income to identify these ?