The Failure of the Anglo-American Council on Producitivity

Abstract

The Anglo-American Council on Productivity is the best-known body created as part of the Attlee Government's productivity drive. The (unavoidably impessionistic) evidence suggests that the impact of this body was rather limited. This article is concerned with the reasons for this failure. The effects of the AACP depended crucially on the role of the FBI, the main employer body represented on the Council. The FBI's attitude to the AACP was partly shaped by the rather uncongenial message of many of the Council reports which followed the visits of productivity teams to the USA—a message which emphasised that management, not workers, were commonly a fault in Britain's poor productivity performance. More broadly the FBI's attitude to the AACP was defensive, embracing it as a way of keeping government 'off their backs' rather than a positive enthusiasm for increased productivity. Generally British employers were enjoying high profits from a sellers' market, and saw little need to respond to a government which in any event found it difficult to find a clear focus for its productivity campaign.