PhDThis thesis studies how attempts to carry out the policy of economic planning
outlined in the Labour Party's 1945 manifesto failed during the Attlee Governments
1945-51. It considers the structure of the civil service and ministerial machinery
created to oversee planning and the changes made to it. It covers the debate among
officials and ministers over what planning meant and which economic tools could be
used to implement it. In particular the thesis focuses on the most tangible
manifestations of the planning policies: the annual economic surveys and the
Long-Term Programme drawn up as part of the European Recovery Programme
process.
The thesis seeks to gauge how far planning added "value" to the economy or
the workings of the Civil Service. It asks whether the new planning bodies fitted
successfully into Whitehall and if British government was sufficiently adaptable to the
new economic challenges it faced. It questions the extent to which planners were able
to foresee the economic problems Britain encountered and consequently whether
ministers were able to successfully combat them. The thesis also seeks to assess the
power of initiative of leading civil servants. Furthermore it investigates when planning
was superseded by Keynesian demand management and how far planning was in fact
incompatible with the capitalist British economy. Overall this thesis demonstrates how
planning, an important economic policy, failed to be implemented in the immediate
post-war years
