Catalogue description Records of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation

In January 1966 a White Paper (Cmnd. 2889) was published outlining proposals for the establishment of an Industrial Reorganisation Corporation (IRC). Its first members were announced by the first Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in May and a Bill presented to Parliament in July. The supporting legislation and the authority for its funding from the public purse did not take effect until December.

The idea behind the founding of the IRC had been worked out in the Ministry of Technology. A statutory body was envisaged which was to be funded by the State. Its aim was to promote the rationalisation, mergers and re-structuring of individual companies as well as whole industries, where such activities would help to boost exports or enable the sharing of resources in order to progress technological advance.

Although established by the government and overseen by the Secretary of State the IRC, constituted as a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, acted independently in carrying out its brief. Pursuing its objectives it liaised closely with the Department of Economic Affairs the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Technology and other government departments whose interests overlapped with it.

The IRC continued to operate after the abolition of the DEA in October 1969, liaising thereafter with the Ministry of Technology which took over the DEA's industrial planning function.