Catalogue description Records of Cabinet Committees, etc, 1939 to 1945

During the Second World War the Cabinet Office provided the secretariat for some 400 War Cabinet committees and sub-committees. Before and during the war there was much criticism of the proliferation of committees, and Churchill made two radical reorganisations in the War Cabinet committee structure: in May 1940, with the appointment of the Defence Committee, Lord President's Committee and Production Council; and at the end of 1940, when the Economic Policy Committee and Production Council were dissolved, and the Import and Production Executives and Reconstruction Problems Committee were appointed.

The War Cabinet committees may be classified broadly into those of a military and those of a civil nature.

Of the principal military committees, the Chiefs of Staff Committee and its related committees were taken over by the War Cabinet in 1939 from the Committee of Imperial Defence, with no change in functions, and operated continuously throughout the war. The three chiefs were the professional heads of their own services and were collectively responsible for advising the War Cabinet on any matters affecting or affected by the military aspect of the conduct of the war. A Military Co-ordination Committee was set up as a standing ministerial body in October 1939 under the chairmanship of the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, to be replaced in May 1940 by a Defence Committee (Operations) to settle strategic matters, and a Defence Committee (Supply) to deal with problems in the supply of equipment to the armed forces. In May 1940 a Home Defence Executive and a Home Defence (Security) Executive were set up to examine problems connected with the possibility of invasion. The latter became in May 1941 the Home Defence Committee, to relieve the chiefs of staff of matters which were not of strategic importance.

In the field of home affairs two committees had been planned before the war and were duly set up. These were the Home Policy (from 1943 Legislation Committee) and Civil Defence Committees. Also rather hurriedly set up at the outbreak of war were the Food Policy and Economic Policy Committees. In May 1940 the Lord President's Committee was set up to co-ordinate these committees. It was reconstituted in October 1940 as a steering committee to watch the general trend of economic development and the work of the economic committees, which it gradually replaced.

A succession of bodies, including the Production Council, and the Production Executive, dealt with the allocation of resources and production priorities until the Ministry of Production was set up in 1942. Another important series of committees dealt with post war reconstruction. A Committee on Reconstruction Problems, set up early in 1941, led to the Beveridge Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services. In January 1943 a Reconstruction Priorities Committee was set up to consider the long-term implications of the Beveridge Report and other post-war claims on the Exchequer. These two committees came to an end when a Minister of Reconstruction was appointed in November 1943, but a new War Cabinet Reconstruction Committee was then established, though its secretariat was provided by the Office of the Minister for Reconstruction.

The War Cabinet Office also provided the secretariat for a number of joint inter-Allied organisations or bodies dealing specifically with Britain's relations with the Allies.

A Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee, composed of the chiefs of staff of the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the USA, was established in January 1942. It met in Washington, where the British Joint Staff Mission, which had been established there in June 1941 and was responsible to the committee, provided representation when the chiefs of staff were not present in person.

One of the directives of the combined chiefs of staff resulted in the establishment of a Combined Munitions Assignment Board in January 1942 to assign supplies for combat forces. Separate boards were set up in Washington and London, the London Munitions Assignment Board dealing with allocation of the products which it controlled to a particular block of countries. An Allied Supplies Executive was set up by Churchill in October 1941, following the Moscow Conference on the previous month, to programme supplies to Russia, and later to Turkey and China. Much of its work was taken over by the Ministry of Production in 1942, but a small central staff was maintained in the War Cabinet Office.

An Anglo-French Liaison Section of the War Cabinet secretariat, set up in 1939 after the outbreak of war, developed after the fall of France into a Central Office for North American Supplies, which in July 1940 became the secretariat of the North American Supply Committee. In October 1942 it was merged into the Joint American Secretariat, responsible for co-ordinating all policy matters arising in the field of Anglo-American supply.