ABSTRACT
Conservative policy on industrial efficiency and productivity can only be understood against the background of general economic performance and policy. Productivity and efficiency concerns never dominated the economic policy agenda in this period, but existed as part of a wider policy mix, within which these issues broadly grew in importance over time. The shift in the significance of efficiency resulted from a combination of changes in the economic environment, both nationally and internationally, and changes in policy goals. Where in the early 1950s, short-term macroeconomic issues largely dominated official and ministerial thinking, by the early 1960s, at least at the level of rhetoric, growth and efficiency had come to the fore.
