The Problem of Funding
The problem of how to find financial support for an independent institute such as NIESR was present at its beginning and was still present when David became Director in 1965. The original grants from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations were ending and the UK Treasury, which had previously provided substantial funds, had decided that these should be directed away from forecasting in order to avoid the perception that the Institute’s forecasts might be unduly influenced by the government.
But, in 1965, David was invited to become a member of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) under the Chairmanship of Michael Young. David accepted this position with the open recognition that the Institute would shortly be applying for SSRC funds. These funds were forthcoming in the form of programme and development grants and put the Institute’s financing on a firmer footing for the next ten years. However, other applicants for SSRC funds objected to the priority of giving such generous funding to NIESR. A coup was attempted in the form of a proposal to establish a “British Brookings”. This was an implied criticism of NIESR’s policies which were viewed in Conservative circles as too Keynesian. At the same time, if adopted, the establishment of such a competitor would have probably completely bled the Institute’s finances. Then it happened that one week David was asked to accept a cut of £200,000 for the Institute, and the next week he read an announcement that exactly the same amount of money was to be set aside for a “British Brookings”. But as Artis states: ‘David was always reasonable but never soft. He could defend his corner fiercely and did so on the occasion. In an atmosphere of considerable tension he had the decision reversed’ (Artis 2003: 518-519).As a by-product, NIESR joined forces with two other threatened institutes to arrange a series of conferences with eventual book publications to deal with various topics of the day, much like the practice of the Brookings Institution. However, shortly afterwards, Margaret Thatcher came to power and Treasury funding was run down. Other funding was eventually found and the Institute continued to produce quarterly forecasts and a substantial amount of research in a wide variety of topics, as has been detailed in Section 4.
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