Abstract
THE importance of efficient management has been much discussed during the past few months, a recent reference being the address by Mr. W. C. Devereux, of High Duty Alloys, Ltd., at the British Association conference on "The Plaće of Science in Industry" (see Nature, January 29, p. 96). The report of the Higher Appointments Committee set up by the Minister of Labour and National Service in July 1943 was therefore awaited with unusual interest*. The Committee, of which Lord Hankey was chairman, was appointed to consider and report upon the arrangements which should be made to facilitate the employment after the end of hostilities of men and women qualified to undertake responsible work in the professions or elsewhere, with particular reference to (a) the organization, premises and staff of the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, and (b) the arrangements which should be made for co-operation between the Appointments Department and other organizations and institutions and universities, in Great Britain and abroad. It is thus of fundamental importance with respect to the re-allocation of employment involved in demobilization, though it was not one of the functions of the Committee to consider the quantitative aspects or trends of employment: that is one of the functions of the Interdepartmental Standing Committee on Education and Training, appointed at the same time as the Higher Appointments Committee, and with the same chairman and secretariat, primarily to consider and report on employment prospects in the various professions and callings. Despite this limitation, the present report is an important contribution to the discussion of a subject which was freely ventilated in the papers contributed recently by Sir Ernest Simon, Dr. C. P. Snow and Sir Lawrence Bragg in a recent number of the Political Quarterly dealing with the future of the universities, and the report is as emphatic as those papers that attention to this quantitative aspect is a primary condition for the efficient functioning of any appointments department.
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Selection for Higher Appointments. Nature 155, 215–218 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155215a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155215a0