The twilight world of British business politics: The Spring Sunningdale conferences since the 1960s

Abstract

This article explores a previously unknown form of interaction, known as Spring Sunningdale, between the British business elite and its civil servant equivalent in Whitehall. These began in 1963 and were still continuing only a few years ago. The continuity and stability of these meetings stands in contrast to wider changes in the nature of business–government relations in Britain during this period, particularly since the election of the Thatcher government in 1979. The article analyses why there was such continuity and what the senior civil servants and the captains of industry who attended these annual meetings gained from them.

Keywords::

• business politics
• Britain
• elites
• corporate political action
• civil service

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this paper were given at the Business History Conference, Philadelphia and the Association of Business Historians conference, Preston. I would like to thank in particular Sherylynne Haggerty, Matthias Kipping, Rodney Lowe, Susie Pak, Jim Phillips and Ray Stokes for their comments and advice.

Notes

^1. Coen, Grant, and Wilson, “Overview,” 1. See also Heemskerk, Mokken, and Fennema, “Fading of the State,” 253.

^2.Lindblom, Politics and Markets. See for example Hillman, Keim, and Schuler, “Corporate Political Activity.”

^3.Monbiot, Captive State; Dahl, Who Governs?; Bartels, Unequal Democracy are some well-known examples.

^4.Flinders et al., eds., Oxford Handbook. Also see Coen, Grant, and Wilson, “Overview,” 14.

^5. Hillman, Keim, and Schuler, “Corporate Political Activity”; Lawton, McGuire, and Rajwani, “Corporate Political Activity.”

^6.Moran, Business, Politics, and Society; Wilks, Political Power; Wilson, Business and Politics; Grant with Sargent, Business and Politics.

^7. For an overview of the general situation see Kipping, “Business–Government Relations.” Recent exceptions are Phillips, “Business and the Limited Reconstruction” and Morelli, Tomlinson, and Wright, “Managing.”

^8.Balogh, “Apotheosis”; Fabian Group, Administrators; Report [Fulton]Committee; Hoskyns, “Whitehall and Westminster.”

^9.Sampson, Who Runs This Place?, 111.

^10.Kavanagh, “Changes”; Burnham and Pyper, Britain's Modernised Civil Service; Heywood, “Integrity Management.”

^11. Wilks, Political Power, 113.

^12.Marquand, “Club Government,” 19–36; Moran, British Regulatory State; Hood et al., Regulation Inside Government.

^13.Moran, “Company of Strangers,” 465; and idem, “Representing,” 71.

^14.Mitchell, Conspicuous Corporation, 157; and Useem, Inner Circle.

^15. Wilks, Political Power, 64–70.

^16.Corfield, “An Industrialist's View,” 91 and 94.

^17.Mueller, “A Civil Servant's View,” 105; Shonfield, Modern Capitalism; Heclo and Wildavsky, Private Government.

^18. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick (hereafter MRC) MSS200/C/2004/77/42, Michael Angus to Robin Biggam (BICC), October 22, 1992.

^19.Lowe, Official History, 446, n146 and 462 n49.

^20.National Audit Office, Managing Risks, 26; Fooks et al., “Corporate Social Responsibility.”

^21. Freedom of Information (FoI) request 316964 was lodged with the Cabinet Office asking for the programmes and attendees of the Spring Sunningdale meetings since 1983 and whether the meetings still took place. Material was supplied for some years up to 2004 but some was refused and no answer was given as to whether the meetings still occurred. Subsequent research has shown leading civil servants claiming expenses in 2009 and 2010 to attend Spring Sunningdale but there is no information as to whether the format remained the same [see transparency data on expenses available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications].

^22.O'Toole, Ideal, 106; Bird, Civil Service College, ix; The UK National Archives (hereafter TNA) T249/233, C. Gilbraith, “Sunningdale conference 25^th–27^th April, 1969,” Annex A. Two industrialists (Lord Melchett, Chairman of the British Steel Corporation, and Sir John Wall, of International computers Ltd.) had to drop out at the last minute. Usually there was someone from a nationalised industry and someone from commerce or finance, and sometimes a government scientist.

^23. TNA T249/234, S.P. Osmond (Civil Service Department) to William Armstrong, “Civil Service Attendance at the Spring Sunningdale Conference,” January 15, 1970.

^24. FoI request 316964.

^25. MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/43, Sir Bryan Nicholson to Nigel Rudd, January 17, 1996.

^26. FoI request 316964.

^27. TNA T249/234, C.M. Regan (Civil Service Department), “1970 Spring Sunningdale Conference,” November 10, 1969.

^28. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/20, John Davies (then with Shell-Mex) to John Gough (Secretary of the Federation of British Industries), March 4, 1963 and Maurice Laing to Gough, March 4, 1963.

^29. MRC MSS200/C/2004/77, (illegible) to Sir Bryan Nicholson (President, CBI), March 16, 1995.

^30. TNA BA21/19, Sir Alexander Glen to Armstrong, April 27, 1970. His extraordinary life is set out in his memoirs: Glen, Footholds.

^31. TNA BT296/522, Armstrong to Forbes, November 13, 1969.

^32. MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/42, “Node and Spring Sunningdale Steering Committee: Note of a Meeting held on 11 November 1992”; and Bird, Civil Service College, 47–8.

^33.Grant, “Overview,” 80.

^34. For example TNA T249/233, Armstrong, draft letter of invitation to Spring Sunningdale, February 12, 1969.

^35. MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/43, Butler to Michael Angus, March 21, 1994. For an example of a businessman expressing this view see MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/42, Sir Patrick Sheehy (Chairman British American Tobacco Industries) to Angus, October 18, 1993.

^36. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/20, “Informal Dinner Party – Thursday August 2nd.”

^37. Ibid., Kipping to Sir Robert Sinclair, August 1, 1962.

^38. See Hennessy, Whitehall, 88–119.

^39. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/20, Kipping, “The Civil Service and Private Enterprise,” August 21, 1962 and Frank Lee (Joint Permanent Secretary to the Treasury) to Kipping, August 22, 1962.

^40. Ibid., Kipping to Sir Robert Sinclair, August 1, 1962.

^41. Ibid., Hume to Kipping, September 18, 1962.

^42. Mueller, “Civil Servant's View,” 105–6.

^43. For example TNA BA21/19, Armstrong to Forbes, April 28, 1970; TNA 249/233, Frank Cooper (Ministry of Defence) to Armstrong, May 8, 1969; and MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/43, Ian McAllister (Chairman and Managing Director, Ford Motor Co. Ltd.) to Angus, March 24, 1994.

^44. TNA BT296/823, J. Gill (Department of Trade and Industry), “The Node Course 1974,” July 3, 1974.

^45. TNA BT296/823, “The Public Service/Private Enterprise Course: ‘The Node’,” undated but December 1978.

^46.Coen and Grant, “Managing Business,” 19.

^47. For example MRC MSS200/F/3/O3/5/18, S.T. Graham, “Second Course for Senior Personnel from the Public Service and Private Enterprise,” March 1965; and TNA T249/233, Armstrong to Sir William Nield, May 14, 1969.

^48. TNA T249/233, Armstrong to Sir Denis Barnes (Permanent Secretary, Department of Employment), April 29, 1969.

^49. In Place of Strife. See Tyler, “‘Victims of Our History’?.”

^50. TNA T249/233, Armstrong to Sir William Nield (Permanent Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs), May 14, 1969.

^51. TNA T249/234, C.M. Regan, “1970 Spring Sunningdale Conference,” November 10, 1969; “Week-end Talks Help to Heal CBI-TUC Rift,” Financial Times, October 20, 1969; and TNA T249/234, “Note of a Meeting of the Joint Committee on the Node and the Spring Sunningdale Conference on Monday 12 January 1970.”

^52. Lawton, McGuire, and Rajwani, “Corporate Political Activity.”

^53.Oliver and Holzinger, “Effectiveness.”

^54. MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/43, O'Cathain (Managing Director, Barbican Centre) to Angus, March 29, 1994.

^55. Ibid., McAllister to Angus, March 24, 1994.

^56. Fooks et al., “Corporate Social Responsibilty.”

^57. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco (hereafter LTDL), Simon Millson to various, “Martin Broughton and Sunningdale,” May 12, 2000. Accessed April 11, 2013. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/rez13a99/pdf.

^58. LTDL, Broughton to Kelly, 30 May 2000. Accessed April 11, 2013. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vxp53a99/pdf.

^59. Useem, Inner Circle. See also Etzion and Davis, “Revolving Doors?,” 157–63.

^60.Maclean, Harvey, and Press, Business Elites, 189; Martin, “Consider the Source!,” 58.

^61. Maclean, Harvey, and Press, Business Elites, 192–4 and 243. More generally see Burt, Brokerage.

^62.MacPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook, “Birds of a Feather”; and Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 68.

^63. Useem, Inner Circle, 8; Richards, Civil Service, 67. Comment was sometimes made on the large measure of agreement on the issues discussed at Spring Sunningdale. For example see MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/43, Peter Smith to Nicholson, March 15, 1995.

^64.Richards, “Appointments,” 672.

^65. TNA BA21/19, R. Daly, “Spring Sunningdale Conference May 14–16, 1971: Notes for Future Conferences,” May 18, 1971.

^66.Doig, “Public Service”; idem, “Question of Balance”; Hennessy, Whitehall, 373–7; Transparency International UK, Fixing the Revolving Door.

^67. Doig, “Public Service,” 54; Part, Making, 183; Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, Civil Servants, 194; Kavanagh and Richards, “Prime Ministers” 192.

^68. Maclean, Harvey, and Press, Business Elites, 189; and Sampson, Changing Anatomy, 182.

^69. Quoted in Transparency International UK, Cabs for Hire?, 16.

^70.Theakston, Leadership, 173–201.

^71.Wheen, Strange Days Indeed, 60–62.

^72. “Anger over Civil Service Head's Move to Banking,” The Times, April 11, 1974, 2.

^73. The idea of a power elite goes back to Mills, Power Elite. See also Domhoff, Power Elite.

^74. Useem, Inner Circle, 88.

^75. Quoted in Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, Civil Servants, 199.

^76. For example Hilton Poynton quoted by Barberis, Elite of the Elite, 151; Hilton, City within a State, 123; Useem and MacCormack, “Dominant Segment.”

^77. Barberis, Elite, 147; Plowden, Ministers, 4; Nicholson, System, 481; Heclo and Wildavsky, Private Government; Lord Rothschild quoted in Hennessy, Whitehall, 240.

^78. Jones quoted in Maclean, Harvey, and Press, Business Elites, 189; and Carey quoted in Doig, “Question of Balance,” 70.

^79. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/20, Kipping, “The Civil Service and Private Enterprise,” August 21, 1962.

^80. TNA T249/291, E. Sniders to Sir Harold Caccia (both Foreign Office), “Contacts between Industry and Whitehall,” October 10, 1963. The industrialist was Michael Clark, a director at Plessey.

^81. TNA BA21/19, Armstrong to Sir Reginald Verdon-Smith (Bristol Aeroplane Co.), May 8, 1970.

^82. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/20, Unsigned, “Notes on Problems of Relationships between Civil Service and Industry,” undated but August 1962.

^83. MRC MSS200/C/2004/77/42, Marianne Neville-Rolfe, “Summer Node 1993,” November 1993.

^84. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/20, Helsby, “Note for the Record: Ditchley,” December 12, 1962.

^85. Ibid, Kipping to H.V. Hodson (Provost, Ditchley Foundation), February 19, 1963.

^86. MRC MSS200/F/3/S2/10/21, M.F.G. Hall (Treasury) to John Gough (FBI Secretary), attached “Guidance for Speaking to the Press in Response to Enquiries,” February 25, 1963. See the Report of the [Plowden]Committee, para. 58.

^87. TNA T249/235, C. Gilbraith, “Sunningdale Conference, 24 to 26 April 1970,” April 1970.

^88. TNA T249/292, J. Anson (Treasury) to Osmond, “Hitchin Course,” March 11, 1965; and TNA T249/292, Armstrong to Helsby, “Public Service/Private Enterprise Courses and Conferences,” June 14, 1967. See Turner, Business in Britain.

^89. TNA T249/292, Osmond to Louis Petch, June 15, 1967.

^90. Nicholson, System, 470.

^91. Hood et al., Regulation Inside Government, 189.

^92.Mizruchi, Structure.

^93. For a similar finding see Maclean, Harvey, and Chia, “Dominant Corporate Agents,” 340.

^94.Moran, “Representing,” 71.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neil Rollings

Neil Rollings is Professor of Economic and Business History at the University of Glasgow.