The Donovan report as evidence‐based policy

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12270
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Author: William Brown
• Date: 01 November 2019

The Donovan report as evidence-based

policy

William Brown

†

ABSTRACT

The Donovan Royal Commission set new standards in evidence-based policy making.

The paper puts the Commission’s research programme in its 1960s context of

disorderly workplace labour relations. It reviews each of the studies, concluding that

they were innovative and had a powerful influence over the Commission’s recom-

mendations. In retrospect, the scope of topics researched was too narrow to engage

with major future challenges. That apart, the precedent of research based on case

studies, surveys and historical analysis has continued to enhance employment-related

policy making.

Political remedies are only effective if they are based on an authoritative understand-

ing of the perceived problems. When the Donovan Royal Commission was set up

in April 1965, there was little shared understanding of Britain’s industrial relations

problems. This was reflected in its terms of reference, which vaguely called on it ‘to

consider relations between managements and employees and the role of trade unions

and employers’associations in promoting the interests of their members and in accel-

erating the social and economic advance of the nation, with particular reference to the

Law affecting the activities of these bodies’(RCTUEA, 1968: 1).

Whether they would agree on remedies, legal or otherwise, the Commissioners had

to start by agreeing on the problems that they were to consider. To this end, they

followed the normal practice of an open invitation for written evidence from any inter-

ested parties, with a substantial list of questions as a prompt, followed by many days of

oral hearings and some site visits. What was unusual at the time was that they also

initiated a substantial programme of commissioned research, independent of any gov-

ernment department and directed by an academic, W.E.J. (later Lord) McCarthy. In

doing this, the Commission said that it was ‘particularly concerned as part of its pro-

gramme of research to obtain information about industrial relations at workshop level,

and especially the role played by shop stewards’(op.cit.: 4). Academics were invited to

carry out research on particular topics within their expertise. In addition, the Govern-

ment Social Survey Department (GSS) carried out a structured survey involving over

3500 interviews of employees, shop stewards, union officials and managers.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on this ambitious research programme and its

influence on the Commission’s recommendations. It considers the achievements of the

research in casting light on the world of employment of the 1960s, as well as in

influencing policy. With the questionable wisdom of 50 years’hindsight, it also con-

siders what could be argued to be notable omissions in the research programme. It con-

†Deceased.

Industrial Relations Journal

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

50:5

–6, 419

–430