The national economic development council 1962–67

Abstract

The text below is the edited version of a witness seminar held during the conference Whitehall in the 1950s and 1960s which was hosted by the Public Record Office on 16 and 17 April 1997. The discussion focused on the tripartite process of government industry and trade unions creating the NEDC as a forum for finding solutions to the main economic problems of the time. The change of government in 1964 and incorporation of parts of the independent Office (NEDO) of the National Economic Development Council into the Department of Economic Affairs was discussed with respect to the effective functioning of the Council as a body which could develop a joint platform of possible actions for the represented parties. The discussion closed with a statement by Sir Fred Catherwood, Director‐General of the NEDC between 1966 and 1971. Peter Jay of the BBC chaired the discussion of the witnesses and Astrid Ringe of Bristol University introduced the historical background to the NEDC (see Background to Neddy, pp.82–98). The participating witnesses were Sir Alan Bailey (formerly Private Secretary to Sir Edward Boyle and Financial Secretary to the Treasury), Sir Fred Catherwood (formerly Managing Director of the British Aluminium Company and Director‐General of the NEDC from 1966 to 1971), Tom Caulcott (formerly Private Secretary to Selwyn Lloyd and Reginald Maudling as Chancellor of the Exchequer, then to George Brown as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs), Sir Alcon Copisarow (Director of a research laboratory at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and seconded to NEDO as Chief Technical Officer in 1962), Lord Croham, (formerly Under‐Secretary at the Overseas Finance Department of the Treasury, from 1962 Third Secretary in charge of the Treasury's National Economy Group and from 1966 to 1967 Permanent Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs), Sir John Garlick (formerly a civil servant at the Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment. In 1962–64 he was seconded to the National Economic Development Office), Ken Johnson (1961–70, Head of the Economic Department and Director of Industrial Affairs of the FBI and CBI), Frances Lynch (Reader in French Studies, University of Westminster), Sir Ronald McIntosh (Undersecretary for regional policy at the Board of Trade 1962–64 and at the Department for Economic Affairs 1964–66, Director‐General of NEDO from 1973–78), Professor Keith Middlemas (Emeritius Professor, University of Sussex, author of Industry, Unions and Government commissioned by the NEDC) and G.D.N. Worswick (Magdalen College Oxford, Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1965–82). The main sponsor of the conference was the ESRC Whitehall Programme. Other sponsors of the Conference were the Public Record Office, the Economic History Society, the Institute of Contemporary British History, Oxford University Press, the University of Bristol, Department of Historical Studies and the University of Glasgow, Centre for Business Studies.