30. There is an aura of dereliction about this corner of the third floor, which should in our view be spring-cleaned and upgraded. It is admittedly at the unfashionable end of the building and rather short of windows but the rooms are generally small and a great deal less noisy than those lower down the building. Any disadvantage of inaccessibility 'is more than compensated for by the better working conditions
which the rooms provide when in proper order. We recommend
31.
(i) a clearance of all irrelevant cupboards and
material including the large quantity of residual Research department papers and books still occupying two of the rooms and much of the corridor space. If, as would appear, Research department have little real need to consult these any longer they should be taken over by Library & Records department.
(ii) that the suite of rooms be renovated and where
necessary repainted. There should be some
advantage in partitioning room K 311 to provide separate access into K 312. Alternatively, separate access might be had by bringing room 313 (now a Research department store) back into use
as a passage and knocking a doorway into room 312.
We have recommended at para 26 that registry staffing should be reviewed after Seychelles independence and that if it is then decided that all the remaining registry work can be handled by one section clerk he should be integrated with the two Hong Kong desk officers in room K 245. This would leave only the FED registry staff in room K 271 and may provide opportunity to rehouse them in a smaller room and to use this large room to better advantage.
32.
Our recommendations for HKIOD and FED will involve some reallocation of accommodation at the West end of the 2nd floor, King Charles Street. We recommend that this should if possible provide separate accommodation for the HKIOD secretarial staff, whose present room (shared with FED) is too crowded and noisy.
33. Acceptance of the Planning paper for Hong Kong, which is still under discussion, may require some strengthening of Hong Kong department. This could in turn require additional accommodation for desk staff.
/Office Machinery
10.
CONFIDENTIAL/ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE