Catalogue description Records of the Ministry of Transport and successors, Directorate-General of Economic Planning Division and successors

Ministry of Transport and successors, Directorate-General of Economic Planning, 1966-1976

In 1966 a new Directorate-General of Economic Planning was established to meet an identified need to extend the scope of the Ministry of Transport's economic programme, which necessitated a major expansion of specialist staff. The broad objectives of the Directorate-General were to carry out, and sponsor, economic research and to advise on the economic and planning aspects of policy decisions.

By January 1967 the following divisions had been established:

• Economic Division, General: responsible, in liaison with the Directorate of Statistics, for all research and policy aspects of the Transport Costs Model and the Shipper Survey; other duties comprised the control of economic research, both internal and external; economic advice on the long-term relationship between Ministry and national economic policies, and on public and private road transport, regional and national physical planning problems, taxation, short-term problems relating to national economic policy, and policy on productivity and labour relations;
• Economic Division, Urban: responsible for the growing programme of economic research work into urban transport problems; the economic aspects of urban policy (including the conurbation land use/transportation studies and the Transport Coordinating Council for London); and of road safety, vehicle regulation and enforcement;
• Economic Division, Railways, Ports and Waterways: responsible for all economic aspects of the railway, ports and waterway industries, including containerisation and inland clearance depots, other than those already attributed to the other parts of the Directorate-General;
• Mathematical Advisory Unit: responsible for a service to all parts of the Directorate-General, and to the Department as a whole, in the use of computers and of a variety of mathematical and computer model-building techniques.

The economics divisions were subject to frequent subsequent reorganisations and by 1970 were grouped under a Directorate of Economics. In 1971, with the setting up of the new Department of the Environment, they became the Directorate of Economics C, part of the Directorate-General of Resource Allocation and Central Economic Services.