ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there are ways in which Ministers may help impose a more effective financial discipline, and may use Boards more efficiently for non-commercial ends – without subordinating them. If a Board is part of a department then its equivalents to a Chairman and Board Members will be civil servants. Board status also protects the Boards from the Select Committee on Estimates and the Public Accounts Committee. If not, these Committees could take nationalized industry expenditure programmes to task. The argument on the scope of the Committees seems circular. Presumably the reason for which the Boards are exempted from this control is that their own financial discipline is thought sufficient. What one is saying is that there may be a case for an Industrial Civil Service whose salary pension and promotion prospects are much more like those of private and public industry.
