Crisis and Credit Control, 1964–1971

Author(s):  
Stuart Aveyard ◽  
Paul Corthorn ◽  
Sean O’Connell

Between 1964 and 1971 the UK suffered great economic difficulties, including repeated balance of payments crises, leading to a prolonged credit squeeze, the seeking of loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the devaluation of sterling in 1967. These issues dominated control over consumer credit. Hire purchase terms control continued to feature in government economic management, producing stronger objections from the consumer durables sector. While the Treasury saw them as a useful demand management tool, the Board of Trade complained of their damage to British industry and the Crowther Committee established to examine consumer credit called for their abandonment. There was also growing pressure, particularly from the Bank of England, to move away from the use of ceilings on bank lending. In 1971, a new system of credit control was introduced, reliant on changes in the cost of credit rather than restrictions on its overall availability.

Author(s):  
Stuart Aveyard ◽  
Paul Corthorn ◽  
Sean O’Connell

The chapter begins with an examination of debates around consumer protection and hire purchase in the 1930s. It explains the emergence and significance of the Hire Purchase Act, 1938. It explores radical (but thwarted) Labour plans to reshape important sectors of the consumer credit market during the 1940s. The chapter then explains the influence of Keynesian theory and its role in generating new policy on economic demand management. The Conservative election victory of 1951 owed much to the party’s courtship of voters with free market rhetoric, but this government instigated hire purchase controls to improve the balance of payments and combat inflation. Labour dubbed the measures ‘a very vicious piece of class legislation’. This policy created long-standing disagreement between the Treasury and the Board of Trade (and consumer durables manufacturers) about the damage to UK manufacturing. The chapter outlines developments up until the Radcliffe Committee was tasked to examine the issue.


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Andrew J Serpell

Payday loans are small-amount, short-term, unsecured, high-cost credit contracts provided by non-mainstream credit providers. Payday loans are usually taken out to help the consumer pay for essential items, such as food, rent, electricity, petrol, broken-down appliances or car registration or repairs. These consumers take out payday loans because they cannot — or believe that they cannot — obtain a loan from a mainstream credit provider such as a bank. In recent years there has been a protracted debate in Australia — and in several overseas jurisdictions — about how to regulate the industry. Recent amendments to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) — referred to in this article as the 2013 reforms — are designed to better protect payday loan consumers. While the 2013 reforms provide substantially improved protection for payday loan consumers, further changes to the law may be warranted. This article raises several law reform issues which should be considered as part of the 2015 review into small amount credit contracts, including whether the caps on the cost of credit are set at the right level, whether the required content and presentation of the consumer warnings needs to be altered, whether more needs to be done to protect consumers who are particularly disadvantaged or vulnerable and whether a general anti-avoidance provision should be included in the credit legislation.


Author(s):  
Peter Scott

By 1939 rising living standards provided access to an array of durable goods that many people regarded as necessities, but would have been beyond the dreams of their parents twenty-five years earlier. Rising real wages, falling fertility rates, and an expansion and liberalization of consumer credit, collectively made affordable goods that cost several weeks’, months’, or (in the case of housing) years’ income. This chapter examines these trends and then discusses their impacts on household demand for durable goods. For most durables, demand is shown to have risen substantially faster than incomes, producing a major rise in their share of total consumer expenditure. This was partly driven by technological improvements, though successful marketing (both of the goods and the consumer credit that made them affordable) also played a key role.


Author(s):  
David Whetham

Between 2007 and 2011, Wootton Bassett, a small Wiltshire town in the UK, became the focus of national attention as its residents responded to the regular repatriations of dead soldiers through its High Street. The town’s response came to symbolize the way that broader attitudes developed and changed over that period. As such, it is a fascinating case study in civil–military relations in the twenty-first century. Success may be the same as victory, but victory, at least as it has been traditionally understood, is not a realistic goal in many types of contemporary conflict. Discretionary wars—conflicts in which national survival is not an issue and even vital national interests may not be at stake—pose particular challenges for any government which does not explain why the cost being paid in blood and treasure is ‘worth it’.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
CIARÁN MURPHY

Abstract The Munro Review of Child Protection asserted that the English child protection system had become overly ‘defensive’, ‘bureaucratised’ and ‘standardised’, meaning that social workers were not employing their discretion in the interests of the individual child. This paper reports on the results of an ethnographic case study of one of England’s statutory child protection teams. The research sought to explore the extent of social worker discretion relative to Munro’s call for ‘radical reform’ and a move towards a more ‘child-centred’ system. Employing an iterative mixed methods design – encompassing documentary analysis, observation, focus group, questionnaire, interview and ‘Critical Realist Grounded Theory’ – the study positioned the UK Government’s prolonged policy of ‘austerity’ as a barrier to social worker discretion. This was because the policy was seen to be contributing to an increased demand for child protection services; and a related sense amongst practitioners that they were afforded insufficient time with the child to garner the requisite knowledge, necessary for discretionary behaviour. Ultimately, despite evidence of progress relative to assertions that social worker discretion had been eroded, the paper concludes that there may still be ‘more to do’ if we are to achieve the ‘child-centred’ and ‘effective’ system that Munro advocated.


2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (5) ◽  
pp. 619-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha Menon ◽  
Alistair J McGuire ◽  
Maria Raikou ◽  
Andy Ryan ◽  
Susan K Davies ◽  
...  

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. A427 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Patel ◽  
B Stoykova ◽  
AC Lloyd ◽  
J Willingham ◽  
R Hollingsworth

The study examined the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on commercial banks credit and the performance of real sector in Nigeria. The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of commercial banks credit on the performance of the real sector in Nigeria.Data was sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin. A systematization literary approach for data analysis was Regression Analysis. Findings revealed that bank credit and bank lending rate does not have significant impact on real sector performance in Nigeria. It was showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between agricultural credit guarantee scheme fund and agricultural production in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that banks should be directed to channel their credits towards the real sector to facilitate overall economic growth and development in Nigeria. It was recommended that there is the need policies that will favor the revamp of the agricultural sector in Nigeria should be given pride of place. Also, monetary authority through the Central Bank of Nigeria should create adequate policies and strategies towards deepening of the financial sector and reducing the cost of credit/loans so as to enhance productivity and consequently enhance the growth of the key sectors of economy such as manufacturing sector.


1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 176-181
Author(s):  
Ian Abbott ◽  
Caron Coldicott ◽  
Moss Foley ◽  
Prue Huddleston ◽  
Peter Stagg

The Economics and Business Studies Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) at the University of Warwick has been at the forefront of developing links between initial teacher education and business. The latest stage in this process occurred in January 1996 when 22 PGCE students undertook a three-day residential course established in a partnership between the University of Warwick, Understanding British Industry (UBI) and the UK Post Office. This course was the first of its kind in the UK to be sponsored by an individual company and has been designed to provide a model which can be used in all areas of initial teacher education links between business and initial teacher education. The authors address practical and theoretical issues relating to the development of links between business and initial teacher education. The broader theoretical issues considered include the significance of this type of activity in relation to the changes taking place in initial teacher education in England and Wales, such as the development of competencies, the role of continuing professional development and the appropriateness of the model. The authors also address the practical implications of working with business, and the development of a residential programme in a crowded timetable, and assess some of the curriculum materials produced by students.


BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. e015561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel I Watson ◽  
Yen-Fu Chen ◽  
Julian F Bion ◽  
Cassie P Aldridge ◽  
Alan Girling ◽  
...  

IntroductionThis protocol concerns the evaluation of increased specialist staffing at weekends in hospitals in England. Seven-day health services are a key policy for the UK government and other health systems trying to improve use of infrastructure and resources. A particular motivation for the 7-day policy has been the observed increase in the risk of death associated with weekend admission, which has been attributed to fewer hospital specialists being available at weekends. However, the causes of the weekend effect have not been adequately characterised; many of the excess deaths associated with the ‘weekend effect’ may not be preventable, and the presumed benefits of improved specialist cover might be offset by the cost of implementation.Methods/designThe Bayesian-founded method we propose will consist of four major steps. First, the development of a qualitative causal model. Specialist presence can affect multiple, interacting causal processes. One or more models will be developed from the results of an expert elicitation workshop and probabilities elicited for each model and relevant model parameters. Second, systematic review of the literature. The model from the first step will provide search limits for a review to identify relevant studies. Third, a statistical model for the effects of specialist presence on care quality and patient outcomes. Fourth, valuation of outcomes. The expected net benefits of different levels of specialist intensity will then be evaluated with respect to the posterior distributions of the parameters.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the Review Subcommittee of the South West Wales REC on 11 November 2013. Informed consent was not required for accessing anonymised patient case records from which patient identifiers had been removed. The findings of this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals; the outputs from this research will also form part of the project report to the HS&DR Programme Board.


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