Catalogue description Committee of Enquiry on the Control of Public Expenditure (Plowden Committee): Records

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Details of T 291
Reference: T 291
Title: Committee of Enquiry on the Control of Public Expenditure (Plowden Committee): Records
Description:

Records of the Committee of Enquiry on the Control of Public Expenditure (Plowden Committee). Contains unregistered files some of which bear manuscript references in two series: CPE (Control of Public Expenditure files concerning the setting up and operation of the committee, minutes of meetings, and notes by the secretary); and TIP (Treasury Internal Papers containing formal minutes of disussion meetings of the Heads of Treasury Divisions, and circulated papers). Also included in the series are some miscellaneous reports and papers.
Date: 1958-1961
Related material:

Other files concerning the setting up of the committee can be found in T 233
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Committee of Enquiry on the Control of Public Expenditure, 1959-1961
Physical description: 85 files and volumes
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure
Publication note:

Report of the Committee Of Enquiry On The Control Of Public Expenditure, HMSO 1961, Cmnd 1432
Administrative / biographical background:

TheCommittee of Enquiry on the Control of Public Expenditure was set up in 1959 under the chairmanship of Lord Plowden to examine the machinery of government expenditure. The committee's terms of reference were:

"To examine the whole machinery of government expenditure - Parliamentary, Treasury and Departmental, including the machinery by which financial implications are taken into account in Ministerial decisions".

It was a Treasury controlled enquiry, with some advice from outside the government service. The membership consisted of two Treasury members, three members from other government departments, and three members from commerce and industry. The Treasury provided the secretary.

Lord Plowden had been a temporary civil servant during the Second World War, and had held appointments on numerous committees. From 1947 to 1953 he was Treasury Chief Planning Officer and Chairman of the Economic Planning Board.

The other members of the committee were Sir Robert Hall and Sir Thomas Padmore (Treasury), Dame Evelyn Sharpe, Mr Hardman and Mr Wey (other civil service members), Sir Jeremy Raisman (Deputy Chairman of Lloyd's Bank), Sir Sam Brown (Linklater and Parris), and Mr Wall (EMI Ltd.), representing industry and commerce. The committee made a series of confidential reports to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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