PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
.............................. C.O.885
19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
190
30 October 1908.]
CROWN AGENTS' ENQUIRY COMMITTEE :
Major J. F. H. CARMICHAEL
Bum-
12 o'clock." They are received by the Secretary in his office and opened by him. 1 must explain that there is a book "kept, and each day the book is sent up to the Secretary's office to show him what tenders have been called for and from what firms. When he receives the tenders he checks them off with the book, and puts &
cross or any remark he likes on the ones that have not tendered. That book I may men- tion incidentally has a second purpose. I send for that book periodically, weekly or wiienever I like, and I look through it to see that sufficient firms have been asked for tenders. In the book is put what the article is that is being tendered for and the names of the firms who have been asked for tenders, so that I can at any time send for that book and turn up my contractors' list, which I think you have seen, and see that all the contractors are being asked in turn, and, for any large contract, A sufficient ber have been asked. Then the tenders come down to
Ille or to my deputy, and they are passed out to the sections and scheduled. If it is necessary to refer them to the Consulting Engineer, or anything like that, or if a Crown Agent ought to see them, they are sent up with the schedules for me to deal with. If there is no particular reason otherwise, the lowest tender is always accepted. The head of the section has no power to do anything except accept the lowest tender without reference either to me, or, if I consider it necessary, to a Crown Agent. If it goes to a consulting engineer and the consulting engineer recommends some other firm which is not the lowest tenderer, then the section head brings it to me and asks if the consulting engineer's recommendation should be accepted. Then I consider it, and, if necessary, I refer it to a Crown Agent. I do not accept it without reason. Then the order form is made out and is sent up to the Crown Agents to sign. For small orders the orders go direct from the ind
of the section to a Crown Agent, but anything at all large has to be initialled either by my deputy or by myself before it goes to Major Cameron to be signi. At the same time as the order is made out a shipping order is made out to the Freeland's, explaining what the articles are and what port we have accepted the shipment at. Then that is the end of the work for the first period. The order is then placed. Of course we accept a tender to be delivered, say, in a month or two months. that is to say, this being the 29th October we would place an order to-day for delivery, say, on the 1st January. There is a diary kept in each sec tion and the order is entered in this diary for delivery on the 1st January. I have forgotten to mention about the covers in the office.. Everything is entered upon a cover, When the 1st January comes, the boy, of course, turns up in the morning his diary, and he sees that such and such a contract is due on that day. He then gets the cover to see if the invoices and the bills of lading have been sent in.
4083. Sent in from whom?--The invoices from the contractors and the bills of lading from Freeland's; that is to say, directly they are in they are entered on the cover. That show us that the work has been shippe, and the invoices being in show us that there is no necessity for us to remind the contractor. I beg par- don--I am wrong; that is what we used to do origin. ally, but I found it was hardly fair to the contractors to expect the invoices and everything settled up the day the contract was due; so according to the magni- tude of the contract, if it is a big contract and there is a good deal of work in the way of invoicing and things to be done, I give them ten days, that is to say.. the thing would be entered up in the diary on the 10th January, and if the bills of lading and invoices were not in on that date a reminder would be sent to the firm.
4681. You said before that when the invoices were net in on the date you booked in the diary, you com municated with Messrs. Freeland --No, we do not communicate with Messrs. Freeland but Messrs. Free- land send the bills of lading to us for transmission to the Colony. When they come to us the checking clerk enters the fact on my covers. That is the only reason the invoices and hills of lading come to us at all—at least it is one of the reasons, and I will not say the only one. That is the object of having the invoices in our office, in order that the covers may be entered up to show me and my deputy that the work is shipped. If. as I say, I
find the work is not shipped I send a reminder to the firm. This reminder is a printed form which says: "We have to remind you that this work was due on such and such a date and that there are certain penalties under which you are working, and if your contract is not fulfilled we draw attention to the clause in your contract." The reminder is a double memorandum, and it goes from the firm to the local inspector, the inspector locally in charge of the work, froir whom it comes to our chief inspecting engineer, and the chief inspecting engineer serids it to me.
4885. Are you speaking of gentlemen who are in your office? Yes.
4686. They are all in Whitehall Gardens-They are all in the Crown Agents. The local inspector lives on the work, that is to say, if the work is being done in Leeds he lives at Leeds, and the reason for sending it to the local inspector is that it is a necessary link in the chain. We found that firms used to answer reminders in a way which was sometimes absolutely incorrect, and when the matter was inquired into it was found that what they said was absolutely untrue. Therefore I have now altered the rule and the re- minder goes from the firm to the local inspector, who initials it if what the firm has said is correct.
4687. (Mr. Harris.) That is the reply to the reminder?-Yes.
4688. (Chairman.) When you speak of local in- spectors, those are for very large orders?—Nearly all our orders are large enough to be inspected.
4689. Those are the engineering orders?—Yes. I have a lot of small orders.
4690. Have you not to do with the general stores?— No; I have a lot of smaller orders as well, but the procedure there is somewhat simplified.
4691. Do not let me interrupt you; you have written to the contractors and the answer you receive goes to the local inspector?-Yes, the answer goes to the local inspector and from there to the chief inspecting engineer.
4602. The local inspector communicates with the chief inspecting engineer?--Yes; it is of no interest to him, but you see the local inspector sends a large mail every day to the chief inspecting engineer, and to save postage he puts that in his envelope.
4603. The chief inspector is up here?-Yes, in Whitehall Gardens, and he merely sends it to me to see the answer. If the answer is not satisfactory we say, "Write again." If the firm write and say, "It is ready to ship," all we do is that we turn the thing over and send it to our shipping agent, saying, "Please note and say when you are going to ship.
They simply write again, "Shipped by such and such a ship," and it is put in the cover.
4694. What next-you have done with it?-We have all done with it.
Freeland?—No, they go straight to the colony.
4695. Do you return the bills of lading to Messrs.
4696. You send the invoices off to the colonies with the bills of lading which Messrs. Freeland send to you ?—Yes,
4607. Do they do anything in connection with writing the contractors as welt? They do a great deal, but owing to the system we have now introduced we have greatly reduced the amount,
4098. How long has this new system been adopted? -About a year
4699. Have delays been prevented? Yes, enor- mously.
4700. They used before to communicate with the contractors?--Yes, we used to have rather a slip-shod method I am afraid before. The reminders used to be sent out monthly; every month on a certain day of the month all the covers used to be collected, and in the cases of what was not shipped they were reminded, and the result was that sometimes it happened that a contract was only one day late, and the contractor was reminded, and possibly another was four weeks late, and so on.
4701. You said that a boy kept this diary: who superintends that 7-The head of the section.
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.
Major J. F. H. CARMICHAEL.
4702. Does he initial the book 1-1 do not think it is necessary; I think you ought to see the diary to see that it is hardly a thing that is necessary. The head of the section is responsible that the thing gues on, and he initials the reminder.
4708. You said now that "Messrs. Freeland have no real responsibility for getting those goods forward? No, I would not say that; we are all responsible together.
4701. Still you have not a plan, surely, under which two people are writing at the same time?-No, we do
not do that.
4705. If you are doing the writing they are not ?- No, but you see in their own interest they very often have to communicate with contractors. Ours, as you will understand, is a machine; they are the head and they have to use their brains. If, for instance, the contract is due on 1st January, and there is a ship sailing on Christmas Day, with our machin nothing would be done, but, Freeland's know that contract is due on the 1st January and they write to the con- tractors and say: "Can you not get it done five days earlier and we can get this large contract away in this ship." No machine could do that.
engage
4708-7. What I want to get at is this: at what point do Messrs. Freeland know they can freight 7-When they get my shipping order,
4708. That is within a month or two months, ac- cording to what time you have allowed the contractor or the contractor has guaranteed delivery ?—Yes.
4709. Do you assert that Messrs. Freeland, if you give them, for instance, January 1st, are at liberty at the middle of December to go and engage freight? -I will not say that; they make inquiries about it.
4710. But I want to know who settles when that freight is actually to be engaged?-Freeland's.
4711. And on what, I will not say authority, but information? On my shipping order.
4712. No, that is two months ago; they could not go into the market and engage freight, at least I should fancy not, for January 1st upon an order dated November 1st; they would not engage freight until they knew they could get these goods 1-No, that is why they have to communicate with the firm.
4713. I want to know where they get that informa- tion from, and at what stage which enables them to get the freight? They get that from the firm.
1714. Then they are communicating with the firms? -Yes.
4715. So that, in addition to your memoranda as the result of your diary, they are at the same time cominunicating with them?-Distinctly.
4716. Two doing the same work 3-I do not think it is the same work. I beg to differ. I speak under correction, but I do not consider it is the same work.
4717. Could you tell the Committee exactly where the work differs ?--It differs in this way, that we must do what we do in order that we may not only keep a check over the contractors as to what they are doing, but should there be any delay warn the colony. You see, when I get an answer to one of my reminders which I consider is very unsatisfactory, and if there is likely to be a long delay, I at, once write to the Colony. I have a form, and I either endorse the con- tractor's answer to my reminder or if it is a very long reason we put it shortly.
4718. I am afraid the Colony does not like that memorandum ?-I am thankful to say it does not have to go very often, but it is better that it should that we should afterwards have to be told we did not than go tell them.
4719. Do you send on these memoranda you receive from the contractors to Mesars. Freeland ?-Only if the contractors say that the goods are ready and awaiting shipment, or something like that; then we turn the memorandum over and just put: "To Messrs. Freeland for report or action," and they simply say: "Will be shipped by so and so," or "Was shipped by so and so," according as it is done then or not.
4720. So that, practically, with the exception of these memoranda to the contractors, from the moment
191
[30 October 1908,
the order is given the matter is otherwise in the hands of your shipping agents ?--Yes.
1721. The whole of that work is done outside the office --Practically, yes, that is to say, the engaging of the freight, as to when it should be engaged, and what they should pay for it and so on, is done by Freeland's.
4722. And looking after the delivery ?--Yes, and looking after the delivery.
the
4723. It is no use their engaging freight if they are not certain they can get the stuff?-That is what I mean; it is 88 regards the freight they look after delivery, and what we do is to make sure that the contractors are not shelving our work in favour of someone else and are likely to be up to time.
4724. (Mr. Harris.) Excuse me, you used phrase: "likely to be up to time," but you have lost touch of the whole contract up to the very day when they ought to be on the steamer; how can you make out that they are likely to be up to time?We have our inspector, he is on the work every day, and if he thinks anything is going wrong he reports to- the chief inspecting engineer.
4725. That is a point we did not get out-that you are in touch through your inspectors ?-Entirely.
4728, (Chairman.) I have it down that you write to the contractors; supposing a certain delivery is due on January 1st, on the 10th they write to the contractors to say: "Those goods have not come a form, and the answer you receive goes to the local inspector? Yes, who has been in touch with the con- tract all the time.
on
4727. But, of course, those local inspectors are only able, I should say, to look after the large engineering affairs? Yes, nearly all my stuff is inspected.
4728. Nearly all your work is large?—Yes.
4729. How many of these local inspectors have you? -I think 27; but I will not be absolutely sure the chief inspecting engineer could tell you that. That is the object of sending it through the local inspector, who has been in touch with the work all the time, and they do not now write and tell us any rubbish they like.
4730. These inspectors go off to the different works? They are at the different centres of work where most of the work is done.
4731. How long have you had these local inspectors? -The system has been going for three and a half years
now.
4782. They have only been built up in recent years? -Yes, that was the raison d'être of my going to the office, as my predecessor Mr. Heath was appointed Chief Inspector.
4733. What used to be done before?--They used to have outside inspectors; it used to be sublet.
4734. They used to have inspectors in the various places? The work was let to different inspectors out- side before we had our own inspection department.
4735. (Sir Ralph Moor.) You refer particularly to orders where it is a matter of tender?-Not only tender.
4736. Take the orders where there is no necessity for tender, where the purchase is a direct one from the time of purchase to the date of shipment_you would not hear anything of the matter in your office? -I do not quite understand. What do you mean by a matter of direct order? We do not order anything direct unless it is a patent or anything like that.
4787. But you have certain orders for which you do not call for tenders for engineering material- tools, anything?-In nearly every order which is not tendered for we have three or four estimates in for it. 4738. Having accepted your estimate, the order is given?--Yes.
4739. Do you then fix the date of delivery?—Yes. A date of delivery is fixed.
4740. In every case, no matter how small the order? -Yes.
4741. That date of delivery is entered up in your diary ? Yes.