* Swell people
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Now we know where all those extra forms are coming from. Since 1958, when the Civil Service was cut to 377,600 from the end-ofwar record of 496,100, its ranks have swelled every year. And between 1958 and 1968 the numbers rose by 100,000—to a total of 476,300. These figures are given in a new Aims of Industry booklet which examines the growth of government manpower.
The writer of the work, research economist F. Knox, puts forward 'severalbasic ways of slimming the service down. One will corn mend itself to those who (like me) still believe that the Transport Act 1968 will swell the numbers still further. "The Government should not initiate, and Parliament should not approve, policies which can be foreseen to require large numbers of civil servants." SPEED, reliability and cost are the three criteria which are to guide the Licensing Authority and his advisers to the right decision on an application for a special authorization or quantity licence. The assumption is that the operator or his customer is incapable of assessing the factors correctly unaided and will more often than not come to a wrong decision in favour of using road transport instead of the railways.
During the whole of the yearlong discussion on the Transport Bill no evidence was put forward to support this assumption. It might be supposed that at long last the facts were being given to the world when the Ministry of Transport publish a document Transport for Industry with the sub-title "A study of the determinants of demand for transport in manufacturing industry".
Here might be the very report promised by Mrs. Barbara Castle when Minister as the proof of the need for quantity licensing. Admittedly the document makes no such claim and indicates that there is more information to come including details of a "cost model upon which the Ministry is currently engaged". In any case the justification has been incubating too long. The Transport Act received the Royal Assent two months ago.