years before. Thus, although one might expect families to move to better forms of housing with rising prosperity, the number who have moved out either to private accommodation or to other forms of subsidized housing is thought to be extremely small.
ESTATE MANAGEMENT
69. The Commissioner for Resettlement is responsible for the management of resettlement estates in the New Territories, while in the urban areas he acts as the agent of the Urban Council which is the competent authority for this purpose under the Resettlement Ordinance. An Assistant Resettlement Officer is in immediate charge of each estate supported by varying numbers of Resettlement Assistants and Student Resettlement Assistants. Eight Resettlement Officers are each responsible for supervising a group of estates and they are in turn directly responsible to an Assistant Commissioner, who is in overall charge of the Estates and Cottage Areas Division, assisted by an Administrative Officer and a Senior Resettlement Officer.
70. The staff at the departmental headquarters concentrates on co-ordination, to ensure uniformity of practice throughout the estates. They take the more important decisions on tenancy matters, oversee and inspect the general management of the estates in all its aspects, and draft proposals for any changes of policy that may be necessary for consideration by select committees of the Urban Council. They are also responsible for preparing answers to questions regarding the estates and cottage areas put to the Commissioner or to the Chairman of the select committees at formal meetings of the Urban Council, and for drafting replies to personal letters and enquiries from Urban Councillors and other members of the public about individual cases.
71. In the older estates, a Resettlement Assistant or Student Resettlement Assistant is responsible for two Mark I or Mark II 'H' shape blocks, that is for a population of four or five thousand people living in about a thousand individual rooms. These officers are trained and encouraged to act not merely as rent collectors and enforcers of tenancy conditions, but also, as far as possible, as friends and counsellors of the occupants of their blocks. In the Mark III blocks with internal corridors, the manning scale is one officer to 750 rooms, while in the taller and more complex Mark IV and V blocks, it is one to 700.
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