Innovations in U.K.

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 17

Innovations in U.K.

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) , LONDON, Oct. 16. J The British Govern- ■ ment yesterday formed ' two mammoth new Ministries and introduced a new group a Cabinet “brains trust” to mastermind political strategy. The Prime Minister (Mt Heath) in a reorganisation that he has planned for five years, named the Minister of Technology (Mr John Davies, aged 54) to head a “super ministry” of industry, and placed the youngest member of the Cabinet, the Minister of Housing (Mr Peter Walker, aged 38) in charge of the new Department of the Environment. Eighteen Ministers are involved in the long-awaited streamlining operation, which is very much Mr Heath’s personal project. “Watchdog” role Along with the creation of new departments and the absorption of old ones, Mr Heath produced something

entirely new in British Government—a small, independent group of experts, attached to the Cabinet Office, to sift and review Government policy. Mr Heath, it was understood, calls the new central directing group his “collective capability organisation.” It would act as a kind of watchdog, analysing and advising on proposals coming before the Cabinet and preventing any overlapping !in recommendations from Government departments. ' A temporary Ministry of I Aviation Supply, headed by Captain Frederick Corfield, now Minister of State at the . Board of Trade, which itself , is to be integrated into the ' new Department of Industry, will last until April, 1972, when it will be i absorbed by the Department ' of Defence. i Past “weakness” A Government White Paper outlining the changes said: 1 “This Administration be- , lieves that Government has . been attempting to do too , much. This has placed an ex- ’ cessive burden on industry, on the people of the country as a whole, and has also overloaded the Government machine itself.” This had caused weaknesses in Government deci-sion-making over the last 25 years, the White Paper added.

The principal effect of the reorganisation is to unify several existing departments under one principal Minister, who will have several other Ministers or Parliamentary Under-Secretaries working under his authority, with responsibility for specific functions. Thus in the new “super” Ministry of Trade and Industry, as it is officially called, the President of the Board of Trade (Mr Michael

Noble), remains under Mi Davies as Minister of Trade, with another minister, Sir John Eden, assigned specific responsibility for industry. Similarly, Mr Julian Amery, a Minister in several previous Conservative Administrations becomes Housing Minister; Mr John ‘ Peyton is appointed Minister of Transport Industries and Mr Rodney Page takes over local government and development. All will be responsible to Mr Walker in the new Ministry of the Environment. Lord Drumalbyn becomes a Minister without Portfolio, and the Earl of Bessborough, son of a former GovernorGeneral of Canada, gives up his post at the Ministry of Technology. The Ministry for Overseas Development under the Minister (Mr Richard Wood) will become a self-contained branch of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with the Foreign Secretary (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) to speak for it in Cabinet.