The Search for a Compromise Solution, 1920–24

Abstract

The Contracts Coordinating Committee (CCC) which met within a week of the Cabinet decision, was governed by terms of reference not substantially less ambitious than those of the abandoned Ministry of Supply. It is noteworthy that the essence, if not the dimensions, of the procurement equation was understood by all three Services right from the start. The Directors of Contracts were: (i) to view comprehensively markets and sources of supply and maintain up-to-date information as to national capacities; (ii) to allocate the productive resources of government-owned and private factories against the war-expansion hypotheses of the Armed Forces; (iii) to coordinate methods of purchase and contract policies; and (iv) to develop contract mobilisation arrangements which could be triggered in time of war.¹ They were thoughtfully provided with the telephone numbers of their opposites in the other Services.

‘If in the leisure of peace logic fail or experiment be denied, then in war there will be failure — costly failure, leading maybe to grave inefficiency in administration or perhaps to a crash of the supply departments … What do we need to assist us? Basic principles, fundamental ideas! But within our realm of supply do these exist? Seemingly not.’

(G. C. Shaw, Supply in Modem War [1938] pp. 22, 27.)