Intervention in Operation

Abstract

As indicated in the previous chapter, the orientation and character of intervention in the offshore supply industry were primarily conditioned by developments in the economy at large impinging upon government. At the same time, neither the Conservatives nor Labour operated from a tabula rasa in responding to the exigencies of the North Sea market and the offshore supply industry. In some instances both governments relied heavily upon established or orthodox practice within the Civil Service in developing offshore policy instruments. In other circumstances, they abandoned established practice. However, even the most unorthodox departures constitute novel applications of familiar and, for the party in power, politically acceptable role models. Under the Conservatives, for example, the City’s reluctance to finance offshore supply projects was addressed by transposing the activities of the merchant banker into the Civil Service, and the result was venture management. Later, Conservatives and Labour found common political ground in promoting the role of the ‘evaluative engineer’ within the Civil Service. The policy instrument which emerged has been labelled ‘monitoring’.