Catalogue description Records of regional organisations

The Board of Trade had no formal network of regional offices until 1945, apart from an Office for Wales, set up in Cardiff in 1942, when those of the Control of Factory and Storage Premises became the regional offices of a newly constituted Board of Trade Regional Organisation. This was set up mainly to help the board discharge functions acquired under the Distribution of Industry Act 1945 and from the merging of the board with the Ministry of Production. The offices provided information on all matters concerning the board in their regions and carried out certain duties delegated from headquarters departments, for example, during the 1947 fuel crisis, the regional offices had responsibilities for ensuring vital industries had adequate coal supplies.

The offices also acted as local agents for the Ministry of Materials during its existence from 1951 to 1954. From 1 August 1957 they were merged with the regional offices of the Ministry of Supply, being responsible to that ministry for work done on its behalf until it was abolished in 1959. In 1969 the work on the location of industry and general supervision of the offices passed to the Ministry of Technology, although they remained responsible to the board for their export functions.

When the board absorbed the Ministry of Production in 1945 it inherited the responsibility for servicing its Regional Boards. When transferred to the board in 1945 they were converted into advisory bodies, extended in scope to the whole range of productive industry and renamed Regional Boards for Industry, under the direction of Regional Controllers. Responsibility for them passed to the Minister for Economic Affairs in October 1947 and in the following month to the Treasury; they returned to the Board of Trade in April 1952.

The boards were dissolved in 1964 when their functions were taken over by new Regional Economic Planning Councils and Boards under the Department of Economic Affairs. The controllers of the boards became part of the Ministry of Technology in 1969, but remained responsible to the Board of Trade for export services. In 1971, they became responsible to the Department of Trade and Industry.