EVOLUTION OF PLANNING
SIR,—It is unfortunate that the Vice-Chairman of the London and South-Eastern Regional Production Board in a letter to The Spectator, a non-technical paper, should support his plea for a Ministry of Planning by illustrations of management ideas which, if ever they were current, are now obsolete. He appears to be concerned with large-scale repetitive production, and makes the surprising statement that only recently have chief engineers been treated as managerial executives. This is not so ; and adequate inquiry will soon satisfy him on the point.
His further statement that chief engineers are responsible for rate- fixing, purchases and stock control is not generally correct. There is a large gap of temperament, training and experience between men who are suited to initiate, guide and control experimental and design work, such as usually falls to chief engineers, and those who do the work of supply managers, which in large factories includes purchasing, outside schedul- ing and progressing, and stock control. Rate-fixing is done usually by People answerable to the works director or manager.
Your correspondent's penultimate and final paragraphs are a bit cloudy. If he seeks to separate the responsibility for production planning from that for production proper, he seeks to put the Minister of Production into a Position similar to that which the Prime Minister recently declined. It will be remembered that Parliament and country accepted the Prime Minister's arguments against the separation of such responsibilities in his Case. The principle accepted by them is of general application.—Yours faithfully, S. C. Bun.En. Calder Cottage, Wymondley Road, Hitchin, Hens.
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