Public Service Boards
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1944.tb00967.x |
| Author | H. R. G. Greaves |
| Published date | 01 April 1944 |
| Date | 01 April 1944 |
PUBLIC
SERVICE
BOARDS
25
security possible and to act accordingly.
So
far as the bad employer is
concerned,
if
his accident ratio is unduly high, or
if
his records show
frequent cases of liability for breach of Statutory or Common Law duties,
he will find his risk unacceptable to insurers or the rate which is asked for
cover
so
high that he will be forced to amend his ways. This acts as a
kind of unofficial penalty.
There
is
no doubt that whatever scheme
is
adopted with regard to
industrial accident, and whether the Common Law remedy is retained or
abolished, the preventive and compensatory aspects should be comple-
mentary and not conflicting. There should be some provision in any
scheme for penalising the employer who has an excessive number
o€
accidents and the employer whose employee has suffered injury as a
result of negligence.
The Factory Act provides penalties for breaches of the Act and regu-
lations, but
it
is questionable if they are severe enough to act
as
a
deterrent. There
is
really no excuse for failure to comply with the safety
requirements of the Act.
It
took many years to get
it
on the Statute Book
and in the course of
its
passage through Parliament
it
was subjected to
the closest scrutiny.
No
insurance scheme covering the industrial accident
risk will work satisfactorily which does not impose exemplary penalties
on the employer who fails to take adequate precautions for the safety of
those who work for him. This is necessary as much in the interests
of
the
good employer
as
in the interests of the worker.
A.
RUSSELL-
JONES.
PUBLIC SERVICE
BOARDS
HE semi-independent public board or commission has been greeted
as
a
great discovery of the inter-war period. There can be no doubt
of the tendency to resort to
it
for an increasing number of purposes,
some of which are less apparently legitimate than others. Because
it
enshrines something of a compromise between private enterprise and
State control this invention is apt to commend itself as
a
practical meeting
ground between conservative and progressive. Many will perhaps be found
to agree with Lord Reith, who looks forward to its extended use in the
future. They would be wise, however, to pause and consider how solid
are the foundations upon which they built their hopes.
For there
is
some danger of over-emphasising the newness of
this
instrument of administration, and
so
forgetting the lessons of similar
experiments in the past. On the extent to which the Public Service Board
expresses
a
useful discovery in political science, or can claim to be based
upon acceptable principles, those who have given most attention to
its
study are not altogether agreed. Dr. W. A.
Robson
has described this
as
"
the most important innovation in political organisation and consti-
tutional practice which has taken place in this country during the past
twenty years."l But as
Mr.
T. H. O'Brien remarks, after examining the
establishment and operation of the B.B.C., the Central Electricity Board
and the London Passenger Transport Board, in each case the form taken
by these semi-autonomous corporations
"
was due more to accident and
T
W.
A,
Robson
(editor),
Public
Enter@rise
(1937).
p.
359.
MODERN LAW REVIEW
April,
1944
the spirit of compromise than to any general Parliamentary faith in, or
appreciation of the working nature of, this type of institution.”Z
It
is
important to ask what in fact
is
new, and what of value, in this
development. The creation of Boards or Commissions for administrative
functions
is
by no means confined to the inter-war period. The history
of
the last century and a half
is
peopled by the ghosts of departed Boards,
and the Commission was
a
method of administration used in Tudor times,
A student of more recent history might justly claim that the Board or
Commission
is
merely the initial stage in the development
of
a
State
function eventually to be organised in a ministerial department. Nor
is
it
always easy to distinguish between a board and
a
ministry. While the
Board of Health and the Poor Law Commission, to take only two examples,
were to develop into
a
State department with
a
ministerial head, some
ministries have the form of Boards without the substance, and others the
substance without the name. The fictitious Board of Trade, Board of
Education and Local Government Board are, or were, Ministries pure
and simple. “My Lords of the Treasury” are a not much nearer approxi-
mation to
a
ministerial board. The Board of Admiralty is in fact as well
as in name
a
ministerial board, and the other two Service departments
show advanced symptoms of such
a
character. Within this field clearly
the essential point
is
that the Minister, however his principal advisers may
be formally co-ordinated,
is
wholly and entirely responsible for every
act of his department. Here also
it
may be said that, despite attempts to
the contrary, the whole tendency of British political organisation has been
towards acceptance of the principle of his all-embracing responsibility.
If
this
is
true of general administrative functions, however,
it
would seem
that there are quasi-judicial or trustee functions on the one hand and
regional operations on the other, for which a semi-autonomous Board or
Commission has proved
a
more enduring experiment. The Charity and
Ecclesiastical Commissions illustrate the former type, and the Mersey
Docks and Harbour Board and the
Port
of London Authority the latter.
How, then, is
it
possible to define the Public Boards which Dr. Robson
and
so
many others welcome? Probably the clue to the effort to treat
these as
a
mechanism wholly different from anything which has gone
before is to be found rather in their origin than their functions. The
three Public Utility Boards
so
far mentioned as established between
1926
and
1933
are all examples of a service taken over from private enterprise
by the State. But
a
definition by reference to historic origin
is
unsuitable
for
a
functional classification of actual political organisation. An alter-
native claim
that
they are essentially distinct might be based upon the
type of function with which they deal. An attempt has sometimes been
made to regard them
as
dealing with economic services, in contrast with
social services such as are controlled by, for example, the Ministry of
Health, the Board of Education, and local authorities. This again seems
inadequate; and this kind of distinction
is
not easy to make. How
is
it
possible to distinguish in such a categorical manner the services supplied
by the Education Authorities and the B.B.C., or the Post Office and the
Central Electricity Board
?
Can the organ responsible for supplying road
transport services within a given area be thus categorically contrasted with
the organ whose task it is to see that the roads used by such transport are
created or maintained
?
It
is only necessary to point out that nationalisation
2
T.
H.
O’Brien,
British Expsriments an
Public
Ownership and Control
(1937).
p.
293.
To continue reading
Request your trial