ABSTRACT
The influence of the Economic Section on policy was nowhere greater or more visible than in relation to the annual budget. From 1947 onwards the Section supplied the Budget Committee with one or more economic assessments which provided a background to the final budget judgement. In addition, both Meade and Hall advised on the shape of the budget, the scale of the measures necessary, and the form that budgetary measures should take. While Meade’s advice had only a limited influence on his Treasury colleagues (and still less on Dalton), in Robert Hall’s period of office the Economic Section came to be regarded, in his words, as ‘almost the responsible authority’; the budget judgement put to the Chancellor was his more than anyone’s.
