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* PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
ודו דרון וויז
Reference :-
C.O.882/12
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE | COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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department in the work of office management is the more surpris- ing when it is noticed that at the time of our inspection an im- portant engineering undertaking in connexion with the irrigation scheme at La Nicoliere was being carried out by a private con- tractor, and that the only other constructional work of any size, the Port Louis sewerage scheme, had been handed over to a private engineer specially engaged for the purpose. We see no objection in principle to the employment by the department of outside con- tractors for special undertakings that are additional to the volume of work with which the department is equipped to deal. It is a more prudent policy than to expand the permanent staff to meet temporary pressure, with the probable consequence that the depart- ment's estimates thereafter will tend to be influenced as much by its increased capacity to undertake new work as by the Colony's need for new undertakings. At the present time, however, we consider that both of the two undertakings which have been handed over to private enterprise could have been carried out by the department's own professional officers without any question of increased permanent staff arising. As will be seen from the foregoing outline of the present activities of the various branches, the work of the department is now mainly reduced to that of maintenance and repairs of existing roads and structures, and we have suggested that such part of this work as relates to roads, buildings, and bridges could be dealt with by two seffior technical officers, each taking charge of one half of the area of the Colony. Irrigation and water-supply work could, we think, also be taken over by those officers, with the exception of the Mare-aux-Vacoas waterworks which is already in the whole-time charge of an experienced technical officer. With this provision for the control and conduct of the work on its executive side, there is no necessity for maintaining more than two posts of higher professional stand- ing, and the officers filling these posts, while taking an active personal share in the technical work, should have ample time for directing the general administration of the department. We recom- mend, therefore, that the post of Assistant Director should be abolished.
15. It remains to consider the clerical staff of the department and the relation between the department and the Financial Assistant, who, as has been mentioned, is an officer on the staff of the Receiver-General. The clerical staff numbers only four, comprising one acting Fourth Class Clerk, two Sixth Class Clerks and a Writer. It is employed on the simple duties of registration of files, the record of letters received or despatched, and typing. All correspondence except of the simplest kind is done personally by the higher officers of the department. Although the clerks are by no means underworked much of the work strikes us as being unnecessary, e.g., the copying of departmental records of the whole contents of all files received from the Colonial Secretary and from
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other departments, especially in the case of departments housed in the same building. A considerable part of their time is also taken up in passing papers to and from the Financial Assistant's office and other sections of the Public Works Department, and in keep- ing what appears to us to be quite unnecessary records of prices and other particulars, etc., extracted from the shipping advices of goods supplied through the Crown Agents' Department.
The whole of the accounting work of the department is performed in the office of the Financial Assistant, i.e., in a section of the Treasury. The Financial Assistant is free from control by the Director of Public Works, to whom, however, he is required to render assistance and advice when called upon, and to furnish periodical reports regarding his examination of the ledgers, stock books, etc., of the Public Works Storekeeper. His staff consists of (1) six permanent and pensionable clerks of the general Govern- ment establishment, (2) eight clerks who appear in item 26 of the Public Works Estimates and are paid from the funds of the District Boards, and (3) four other unpensionable clerks, two of whom are charged to Appendix VI (Improvement and Development Scheme), and Appendix VII (Port Louis Sewerage Fund), respectively. Not- the Financial withstanding its heterogeneous composition, Assistant's office impressed us as being both well organized and efficiently managed. For the work as it stands at present the number of clerks does not appear to be excessive but we feel bound to point out the unfairness of employing clerks of entirely different service status, and with widely different rates of pay, on sub- stantially the same kind of work, and with approximately equal responsibilities.
This arrangement, for which, of course, the Financial Assistant is not himself responsible, cannot be justified by the fact that the cost of the lower-paid clerks is partly defrayed from outside the general revenues. The branch is rightly organized as one office and should be paid on that basis in accordance with the ordinary Civil Service rates of pay for the work to be done.
A final question is as to the highly anomalous constitutional relation between the Financial Assistant and the Director of Public Works. This we consider should be terminated forthwith and the Financial Assistant's office incorporated as a branch of the Public Works Department. So long as the present arrangement continues the Director of Public Works cannot fairly be said to be in full control of his own department so as to be responsible for delays in the payment of water-dues, the management of his stores and other such matters in which efficient control and accountancy are closely interdependent. The Financial Assistant is equally hampered in being placed in the position of an outside critic rather than a colleague in suggesting or discussing alterations in the departmental organization, and no secret is made of the fact that the present