SZ/CIP - Committee on Industrial Productivity

SZ/CIP

Series

Committee on Industrial Productivity

1947-1952

12 boxes
9 files

Productivity
United Kingdom. Committee on Industrial Productivity

The Committee on Industrial Productivity was predecessor to the Natural Resources (Technical) Committee [see SZ/NRTC]. Includes minutes, papers and correspondence, 1947-1952.

The Committee on Industrial Productivity was established in December 1947 " to supplement the work of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy" [statement to Parliament by Herbert Morrison, Lord President of the Council, 18.12.47]. Specifically, it was to "advise the Lord President... and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the form and scale of research effort in the natural and social sciences, which will best assist an early increase in industrial productivity and further to advise on the manner in which the results of such research can be best applied".

The background to the establishment of the Committee was the post-war stirling crisis and the need to reduce substantially Britain’s dependence on imported goods and raw materials, particularly those that had to be paid for in dollars, while at the same time accelerating the rate of post-war reconstruction. The Committee was chaired by Sir Henry Tizard and operated by means of a series of panels established ad hoc. SZ was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Committee and also chaired its Panel on Imports Substitution. Other panels dealt with technical and operational research, human factors, industrial electronics, and technical information services (a member of which was J.D. Bernal). The Committee was wound up in July 1950.

The correspondence (File SZ/CIP/2) is arranged chronologically and spans virtually the full range of the Committee’s business. It also includes references to the Midlands Advisory Council [on productivity] with which both SZ and Sir George Schuster, Chairman of the Human Factors Panel, were associated.

The series is chiefly concerned with the business of the Imports Substitution Panel (File SZ/ACSP/4) and two study groups that it set up, one dealing with the manufacture and use of fertilisers, and the other with animal feedstuffs and grassland production (including grass-drying and leaf protein). The task of the Panel was to identify ways of substituting indigenous products, or products derived from indigenous sources, for imports.

In addition to the investigations carried out by these two study groups, and the question of food supplies and agricultural productivity generally, the Imports Substitution Panel looked at: paper-production and alternatives to imported wood-pulp; non-ferrous metals, including the Cornish tin-mining industry; recovering sulphur from industrial processes, and the supply of sulphuric acid; carbon black; the use of rayon as an alternative to various imported textiles and fibres; tanning materials; land reclamation and the effective use of marginal land; timber production and forestry (with particular reference to the supply of pit-props and pulp production); unconventional foodstuffs, including chlorella and fresh-water fish-farming (in ponds); new and alternative building materials; substitutes for structural steel; pest-control, including control of rabbits; plastics; and alginates.

On the dissolution of the Committee in 1950, the work of the Imports Substitution Panel was continued by the Natural Resources (Technical) Committee, which SZ chaired (see Series SZ/NRTC).