7.85
A Linhof Technika camera provides the professional quality results called for by the Architectural and Civil Engineering Offices as well as this Office, although actual demand for normal photography declined due to reduced activity in the development sphere and the uneventful year in respect of natural disasters.
7.86
Delivery was also taken of the Milligan Electronic Contact Printer for air photographs. This will eventually be housed with the Photogrammetric Unit at San Po Kong.
STAFF, TRAINING AND WELFARE
Staff
7.87
The total authorised establishment amounted to 1,202 persons, an increase of 68 over the previous year. The Office continued to recruit professional staff for the New Territories Administration and the Civil Engineering Office, Highways Office and Mass Transit Office.
7.88
Seven Estate Surveyors and five Land Surveyors were appointed on contract during the year. Local officers continued to be recruited and received in-service training, and in this category two Assistant Estate Surveyors who became professionally qualified were promoted to Estate Surveyors, and two Student Estate Surveyors and one Surveying Assistant (Estate) Rank I who passed the final examination of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors were promoted to Assistant Estate Surveyors. Five local Assistant Land Surveyors were promoted to Land Surveyors. During the year one Senior Estate Surveyor and one Estate Surveyor resigned; one Government Land Surveyor and one Senior Estate Surveyor retired; two Land Surveyors and two Estate Surveyors left Government service on completion of their contract.
7.89
Surveying Assistants (Land, Engineering and Estate) are mostly young men with the appropriate academic qualifications, often recruited immediately after leaving school. They all join the service initially at Class III level. Surveying Assistants (Land and Engineering) attend a comprehensive course in land survey for 9 months, while the Estate stream attend a shorter course. Thereafter, the Surveying Assistants (Engineering) are attached to various functional survey sections for field and practical experience for a period of 6 months before being posted to one of the engineering offices for further in-service training. Surveying Assistants (Land and Estate) do the whole of their in-service training in Crown Lands & Survey Office. At the end of 3 years, Surveying Assistants of the three streams sit for a promotion examination and, subject to passing this and satisfactory service, are promoted to Class II at the end of four years.
7.90
Officers recruited in the Surveying Assistant grades, although not pupils, are, subject to holding the necessary academic qualifications, able to take professional examinations. In the 1974 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors examinations, three Student Estate Surveyors passed the Part II examination, and two Student Estate Surveyors and one Surveying Assistant (Estate), Rank I passed the Final examination.
7.91