Area Boards: Independence, Overexpansion and the New Rationality

Abstract

Both the Area Boards and Conservative back-benchers had initially been delighted that the new Electricity Council had relatively few powers of control over the decentralised distribution Boards. Their labour relations remained a central matter (see Chapter 18 below), as did some training and the arrangements for pooling bank accounts and raising capital. But the central responsibilities for policy development, economic and engineering performance, and ‘commercial’ behaviour now lay with the Area Boards. Their officers still met regularly (though less frequently than under the CEA) to discuss common problems, and their chairmen now all met at Council meetings every month, but they were free to go their own way on most matters if they wished. Conservative romantics viewed this as the pathway to more commercial behaviour and increased efficiency and profitability, and the Herbert Committee had itself entertained hopes in this direction; but it became increasingly clear that this particular incantation did not work.

We believe that each Board should be encouraged to stand on their own feet …

Report of [Herbert] Committee of Inquiry into The Electricity Supply Industry, Cmd. 9762, 1956, p. 96

I think the question of pricing for electricity is one to which we do not know the precise answer; I wish we did.

R. F. Richardson, South Western Board Chief Commercial Officer, evidence to Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, 4 July 1962.