Embargo on recruiting new staff in BR 1979/1980?

[GP Wilson]

Hello
When the Conservative Party won the General Election in 1979, did they place an embargo on British Rail from taking on new employees.
Thanks

 

[WesternLancer]

Hello
When the Conservative Party won the General Election in 1979, did they place an embargo on British Rail from taking on new employees.
Thanks

In those days I doubt govt would have been that involved in what would have been seen as a matter for the BR Board to decide based on the resources they had. Treasury would have set payment subsidy levels to BR then BR left to make what they could of it.
Not as micromanaged as it has become today.

Do you have reason to think they might have had such a recruitment freeze however?

 

[Gloster]

I can’t remember any such embargo and can remember some people being taken on to fill vacancies, although that might be just before or after such an embargo. As said above, BR was given an overall budget and left to get on with it, but it is possible that it might have trimmed back a bit in places after listening to the government’s pronouncements. There were always the equivalent of local embargoes in places where a cut in staff was expected: areas where manual signalboxes were being replaced by power boxes, depots that were going to lose a lot of work due to a customer closure, etc.

 

[SargeNpton]

Embargoes on recruiting staff were BR's own decision. Often in advance of any reorganisations - of which there were many between the late 70s and early 90s.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There was a strike in the steel industry that left many rail staff at particular locations idle for weeks and hammered BR’s cash flow, leading to a short recruitment freeze.

Not a ‘government decision’.

 

[75A]

I joined the Southern region as a 'Track Worker' in September 1979 and my seniority date on the footplate was 4/2/80, so no embargo in the Brighton area at that time.

 

[greyman42]

BREL were recruiting staff at that time and still taking apprentices.