Nicholas Monck

Nicholas Monck

Sir Nicholas Monck KCB: Former Permanent Secretary to the Employment Department and Second Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. According to Who's Who, Monck is an 'international consultant'.

Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Monck joined the Ministry of Power in 1959-62; The National Economic Development Office, 1962-65; the National Board for Prices and Incomes, 1965-66; Senior Economist Ministry of Agriculture in Tanzania, 1966-69; HM Treasury, 1969-92; Board member of British Steel, UK Treasury, 1978–1980; PPS to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1976-77 Monck handled the Domestic and international aspects of UK application for International Monetary Fund loan. Dennis, now Lord Healy, because of bad Treasury forecasts went cap-in-hand for an IMF loan, after which he concluded ‘that most of the theories on which economics is based are bunkum.’ ^[1] The wildly innacurate assessment of the governments finances that forced a loan which came with IMF conditions that forced the Labour government to adopt budget cuts and pay restrictions that caused the famous 'winter of discontent'. Roy Hattersley argues in the New Statesman that the Treasury statistics turned out to be categorically wrong:

"The sacrifice for which they called was a reduction in the public sector borrowing - a result achieved partly by cuts in social services. In fact, it turned out that the Treasury had grossly overestimated the size of the public sector borrowing requirement. The cuts were unnecessary."

Monck's Treasury work has also involved Privatisation, especially BT & Water and Competition policy: takeovers & restrictive practices

Monck is also a Senior Associate at the Oxford Policy Management and Chair of the Oxford Policy Institute; Member of Fabian Commission on Taxation, 1998–2000; Council member of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research; Chairman of British Dyslexia Association. 1995–2000; Deputy Chairman of the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation (IMRO), 1995–2000 and director of Standard Life 1997-2005.

Consultantcy

As a consultant he has carried out assignments in:

2001 Albania: Workshop on Public Administration Reform.

2001 Ethiopia: Public Enterprise Reform & Privatisation.

2000 Malawi: Medium Term Expenditure Framework:

1999 UK: Good Practice in Public Expenditure Management.

1999 Tanzania: Joint author of a report on strengthening capacity of Government Economic Service.

1999 Hungary: Member of a team producing ‘Guide to Output and Performance Measurement in Central Government’.

1998 Cuba: Presented paper on UK experience to International Seminar on Role of the Treasury in Reform Process of the State’s Financial Administration.

1996 Bulgaria: Report on Planning and Managing Public Expenditure in Bulgaria with emphasis on leading a value for money drive from the Ministry of Finance.

1996 Mexico: High level seminars about innovations in the UK public sector in the last decades leading to improvements in the control and value for money of public expenditure and to improved quality of service and accountability.

1996 Hungary: Produced a report on future policy and management of their Social Security (ie. Health and Pensions) Funds.

1996 South Africa: Member of team producing an Institutional Review of the Land Reform Programme.

Monck is also on the Advisory Council of Transparency International (UK).

Publications

“International Commodity Agreements”, chapter in Sarah Child, Poverty and Affluence. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968, pp.161-173

“The Need for a Strong Treasury, and how to make it work”, chapter in Dan Corry, ed. Public Expenditure, Effective Management and Control. London: Dryden Press, 1997, pp.275-288

“Some facts about tax and public spending”, chapter in Paying for Progress, A new Politics of Tax for Public Spending. London: Fabian Society, 2000, pp 57-80

Notes

^ Financial World (2006) Interest rates must be able to function freely, February, p. 6