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Wednesday, October 17, 1973
The long-term plans for housing and social welfare are thus
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firmly established, and those for education and medical and health services are far advanced. Each year each projection will be re-examined and rolled forward, so that we will continue to have a clear long term view of what must be done. We thus now have four pillars on which the future well-being
of our community can be built. The concern of Government must now be
to ensure that the plans do not slip and that they are carried out with the vigour that the community demands.
Reform of the machinery of Government.
The elaboration of these plans across so wide a field, and more or leas simultaneously, has placed a considerable strain on the machinery of Government and I am indeed proud of the response of the public service
to the challenge involved. I very much hope that the progressive implementation of the recommendations of the consultants, Messrs. McKinsey, to strengthen the machinery and planning processes of Government, will eliminate the need for any repetition of such a mammoth operation.
Since the consultants' departure the Colonial Secretariat has
been re-organised into six Policy and two Resource Branches, the former being based on six groups of programmes, i.e. Economic Services, Environment, Home Affairs and Information, Housing, Security, and Social Services.
Now that seven of the eight Secretaries have been named, and are
in post, our aim is to develop and implement a workable and reliable Government Management system based on the consultants' recommendations, and tailored
to our own evolving requirements.
Such a system must embrace the assessment
of our needs and the formulation of policies required to meet them; it will also
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