Council Meetings and Committees

A major sequence of files within DCA/2 is the unbroken set of Minutes of Council Meetings for the period 1945-1993. Through these it is possible to assess the top level of Council policy-making. There are also Minutes of the Industrial Committee (DCA/2/850) from 1947-1971, and the Design Centre Committee (DCA/2/1574) from 1958-1972. The remaining 25 files reflect the work of the Finance Committee, Information Committee, Exhibitions Committee, Scottish Committee, Retail Advisory Committee, Engineering Design Advisory Committee, and Colour Advisory Committee.

The complex set of relationships entered into by the Council, and its wide-ranging agenda, were managed through an evolving set of committees, composed of a mixture of key staff and Council members. These committees changed in number, focus and composition over the decades, with the major change coming in the financial year 1971-1972 when preparations were underway for the Council"s change in name and orientation. At this point all standing committees apart from the one associated with Finance were disbanded, leaving only the advisory committees that had previously supplemented them. Of particular note is the Council"s Scottish Committee, a parallel entity with its own headquarters, structures, personnel and organization.

The surviving files have been retained in their original numeric order as allocated by the Council"s Registry. This means that records in a series do not necessarily have consecutive file numbers, and may not be located together.

Record created by Lesley Whitworth with minor amendments by Sue Breakell, June 2010

Minutes of the Heads of Divisions meetings, and those related to "Britain Can Make It" are to be found elsewhere (DCA/3 and DCA/14A respectively). Additional Exhibitions Committee material may be found in DCA/14. Further evidence of evolving policy can also be found in file sequence DCA/1/23 on "Future Activities".