Public stewardship of British steel

Abstract

In the 1981 Iron & Steel Act, the Government abolished the statutory duties of the British Steel Corporation. According to the 1967 and 1975 Acts, these had been ‘to promote the efficient and economical supply... and to further the public interest in all aspects.’ There was not much there that private owners would not also have accepted, but it did provide a rationale for the presence on the Board of nominees of the Department of Industry and the Treasury.

Of course, there were other rationales. Until this year, British Steel has been not simply a major loss‐maker, but also a major investor. The Government were represented, therefore, as banker. But the relationship between the industry and its sponsoring Department still remained uneasy, as it has throughout all the nationalised industries. Some of the reasons for this continuing unease emerge from a study of British Steel, based on extensive interviews, by Heidrun Abromeit (British Steel: an industry between the State and the private sector, Berg, Leamington Spa, 1986, £21.95).

The following extracts are taken from a summary of chapter 11, Ministerial Control and the Industry's Decision‐Making, supplemented by ‘boxed’ extracts from the main body of the chapter. We are grateful to the publishers for permission to reproduce these extracts, which highlight the difficulties and conflicts that arose between the various categories of part‐time directors, including the civil servants, and the Corporation.