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a proper record of the negotiations carried out was not maintained. Such a record would have facilitated appraisal by the management of the terms offered and indicated where improvements could be negotiated in future.
I have forwarded my observations to the Deputy Financial Secretary and the Director of Government Supplies, and requested them to consider the desirability of issuing comprehensive guidelines in order to ensure that single tenders are critically examined and adequately negotiated with due regard to economy.
72.
Provision and management of departmental quarters. The Secretary for District Administration, who heads the City and New Territories Administration, is responsible for managing the stock of departmental quarters in New Territories districts which in 1982 numbered 275. Departmental quarters are provided only to house those officers who must be accommodated in the districts to meet operational requirements and priority is given to those who need to perform duties during emergencies, such as tropical cyclones, rainstorms and landslips. In a recent review of the arrangement for controlling these departmental quarters, I noted that many quarters were not occupied for considerable periods and that there were long delays in allocating them to eligible officers. Some of the delays were understandable, such as the case of one quarter which could not be allocated because of reports that it was haunted. However, the most serious case of delay arose out of the decision to transfer the lands function of the City and New Territories Administration with the relevant staff and some departmental quarters to the newly formed Lands Department. The departmental quarters were to be transferred on the understanding that the general grades staff occupying them in the Lands Department would make themselves available to the Secretary for District Administration in times of emergency.
73.
The Lands Department was created with effect from 1 April 1982 and the list of quarters actually required for the various grades of officers in the districts of the New Territories Region, which included officers to be transferred to the Lands Department, had already been agreed in October 1981 with the Director, Councils and Administration Branch. Therefore, it should have been a relatively simple operation to decide which quarters should be taken over by the Lands Department on 1 April 1982, particularly as no officer would be evicted from his quarter as a result of the exercise. However, as vacant possession would provide more flexibility and reduce administrative problems during the negotiations for the division of the quarters between the two authorities, the Secretary for District Administration decided in May