Catalogue description Records of the Loan Commissioners and the Public Works Loan Board

The origins of the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) lay in an act of 1817 which, because of widespread unemployment and difficulty in obtaining loans of capital for public works after the Napoleonic Wars, authorised the issue of Exchequer bills and the advance of money from the Consolidated Fund for carrying on works of a public nature, fisheries and collieries or mines, and the employment of the poor. A body of 21 Exchequer loan commissioners was appointed to administer the act in Great Britain, and separate commissioners for its execution in Ireland.

In 1842 the system of making advances by occasional issues of Exchequer bills was replaced by the creation of a Public Works Loan Fund, payable from the Consolidated Fund, and of which the national debt commissioners were appointed trustees. The public works loan commissioners, as they were now called, were thenceforward appointed by successive acts of Parliament, usually for periods of five years.

West India relief commissioners were created in 1832 to administer an act authorising the issue of Exchequer bills for relief, by way of loan, of various West Indies islands and British Guiana, which had suffered great losses through insurrections, hurricanes and other causes. At first entirely distinct from the Public Works Loan Board, they shared the same officers with the board in London from 1855, and on 15 April 1881 all their powers were vested in the Public Works Loan Commissioners.

The board was reconstituted under the Public Works Loans Act 1875, by which all its loans were to be made out of a credit on the Consolidated Fund by an annual act. In addition, from 1879 the national debt commissioners were authorised to supply the board with the means of making loans from savings bank funds. From 1887 advances were financed by issues from the Local Loans Fund by the national debt commissioners, until the National Loans Act 1968 replaced that fund by a National Loans Fund at the Bank of England, from which sums required by the board are issued by the Treasury.

The functions of the board were to make loans to local authorities and other public bodies for public works, to harbour authorities for harbour works, and to housing associations, companies, societies and private persons for the provision of houses. Loans were also advanced from time to time for such purposes as long term credits to farmers and to Territorial Army associations. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had parliamentary responsibility for the board, which was an independent statutory body of twelve unpaid commissioners. They were appointed by the crown under the Public Works Loans Act 1946, which ended the earlier method of appointment by act of Parliament.

All regulations issued by the commissioners subject to the approval of the Treasury, which also fixed rates of interest on loans and could, on the recommendation of the commissioners, extend the term for repayment in certain cases. The commissioners were, however, the sole judges of the security proffered for a loan, and all loans made by them were done so on their own responsibility.

In 1980 the National Investment and Loans Office was set up by administrative action, to discharge the functions of the Commissioners, and of the Public Works Loan Board, and of the Paymaster General's Office; and on 1 July 2002 the National Investment and Loans Office was merged in the United Kingdom Debt Management Office (except for the Paymaster General's Office which was merged in the Treasury).

The Public Works Loan Board and of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt continue to carry out their statutory functions, within the Debt Management Office.