Work. The Director of Social Welfare is the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the School of Social Work and his department maintains a close link with the Polytechnic.
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The rapid expansion of social welfare services in the past decade has outstripped the organisational and administrative capacity of the Social Welfare Department which was last re- organised in 1970. Despite a network of offices and centres, much of the work was still centrally controlled. Following a comprehensive management study in 1977 in which the department's proposals to adopt a regional organisation to rationalise and decentralise its operations were carefully examined, the department's services are now provided on a regional basis. At the same time, the welfare class of officers in the department - the technical and professional staff who have direct responsibility for the administration of social security and social welfare services - was thoroughly reviewed against the background of the rapid developments that have taken place in the past five years, and has been restructured.
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