GRANTS‐IN‐AID TO PUBLIC BODIES
| Published date | 01 March 1953 |
| Date | 01 March 1953 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1953.tb01766.x |
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
There is one point where
Mr.
Richards, and
his
colleagues studying
problems of Government, can give an invaluable service. Civil Defence in
action can be likened to a
“
battle
in
depth,” and like any other battle its
success ultimately depends on administration and supply, and only secondarily
on tactics. As the Home Secretary said on 2nd December, Local Authorities,
for the first time in peace, are now organising a voluntary service as a permanent
feature of modern Local Government. There are not only all the problems of
co-ordination between many Government departments and a dozen
or
more
local government departments to be studied. There is also the whole panorama
of voluntary organisations and willing individuals to be united into an effective
service. Here is an administrative challenge worthy of close study and
original experiment.
Mr.
Richards concludes by saying that
“
if the international situation
improves visibly, the spirit of the Civil Defence forces is bound to be affected
(adversely).” This is a misconception of the purpose and character of Civil
Defence. If we have no accidents, we do not cancel
our
insurance policies
;
if
the health of school children improves, we do not reduce the school health
service
;
if international tensions relax that would be a refreshing encourage-
ment, as
it
would also be a reason for renewed vigilance and renewed deter-
mination
on
the part of the Civil Defence services.
It
is the function of
enlightened leadership to ensure that the spirit of the Civil Defence forces
does not imitate the fluctuations of the political thermometer.
Civil Defence Offices, ALBERT COORE.
2nd January,
1953.
Yours
faithfully,
The Castle,
York.
GRANTS-IN-AID
TO
PUBLIC BODIES
DEAR SIR,
Mr.
Grove is not quite correct in stating, in his excellent article on
“
Grants-in-Aid to Public Bodies
”
(Winter, 1952), that the staff of the
Agricultural Research Council are not Civil Servants. This is true of the
staff outside headquarters
;
but the Council’s headquarters staff are Civil
Servants, appointed under Civil Service conditions and freely transferable
from and
to
other Departments.
Some details of the Council’s relationship to the other Departments
concerned with agriculture may be of interest. The Council’s
“
parent
”
department (as defined by Mr. Groves) is the Treasury; but the three
Agricultural Departments of the
U.K.
each appoint an
“
assessor
”
who
receives the papers and may attend the meetings of the Council and their
committees. Besides disbursing their own grant-in-aid for research purposes,
the Council advise the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Depart-
ment of Agriculture for Scotland on the estimates and research programmes
of the State-aided agricultural research institutes, which are financed by
annual block grants from the votes
of
the Departments.
Ilford, Essex. L.
S.
PORTER.
9th
January,
1953.
86
Yours
faithfully,
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