Applications in government policy making

Abstract

The paper looks at the evolution of operational research in civil departments of the United Kingdom government against the growing realization in the post-war period of the value of numerate methods for the development of policy over a widening area of government activities. It discusses the thinking about such methods which lay behind the Plowden Report of 1961 and ‘Control of public expenditure’ and the Fulton Report of 1968 on ‘The Civil Service’. It acknowledges the contribution made by the Joint Conference with industrial and university representatives at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1969. It traces the establishment of new operational research groups in the Treasury and the larger departments. Accounts are given of certain of the larger interdepartmental studies, including pioneering work on aspects of transport. An outline is suggested of the future application of operational research in civil administration, and of the problems to be overcome in securing the greatest possible advantage from it.