M
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE.
93
W
15
The staff of this office has grown enormously within the last ten years. This may to some extent be accounted for by the increased activities of the local Government resultant on the political awakening of China, and the stream of Missions and enquiries sent out by the League of Nations. But even after making full allowance for this, the
Commissioners consider that much can and should be effected
in the way of retrenchment by re-organization. Despite its
large staff more overtime is worked in this office than
probably in any other Government department. Without re- organization therefore no reduction will be possible. must be re-organization not only of the internal working
It
of the Office but of the division of the work of Government
between the Secretariat and the departments.
دد
2. The fault may be summed up briefly as over centralization'. The amount of trivial matters ( which cannot be of interest
to the Colonial Secretary's Office), that come to it from departments is amazing. Possibly each of them occupies only a minute or two of the time of the Assistant Colonial
Secretaries, but on the other hand it means a considerable
amount of work for the clerical staff,
making up the file,
card indexing it, entry into a register every time it comes in or goes out of the office. Multiply this several times, and it will readily be understood why there is such a large clerical staff. There are in addition many matters not of a trivial nature which are dealt with by the Secretariat, but which should really be dealt with in toto by the head of the department concerned. The Commissioners would stress again
the point that they made in their report on the Public Works