1982 to withhold the allocation of all vacant departmental quarters pending an agreement with the Lands Department on their division. This decision might not have mattered had the division of the quarters been done quickly but it took about eight months for an agreement to be reached and the allocation of quarters was not resumed until January 1983. Meanwhile 41 quarters had become vacant and withheld from re-allocation. The total cost, in actual and notional rental, of keeping these quarters vacant was over $600,000 and in drawing attention to this matter I advised the Secretary for District Administration that his allowing so many quarters to remain vacant for such a long time suggested either that the quarters were not needed or that the operational effectiveness of the district administration was reduced. Similar views were expressed by the Director, Councils and Administration Branch, who had overall responsibility for the administration of Government quarters. He had written to the Secretary for District Administration on several occasions in an attempt to expedite the division of the quarters and on the last occasion he complained of the unconscionable time taken to divide the stock of quarters between the two authorities. He considered that this delay and the decision to leave the quarters vacant while the wrangling went on showed a deplorable disregard for the proper management of Government accommodation.
74.
The Secretary for District Administration explained that the Government's decision to set up the Lands Department was announced so suddenly that it did not allow adequate lead time and in this rather hectic situation, where top priority had to be given to important policy issues on land transactions and registration procedures in the New Territories as well as dealing with the division of office accommodation, staffing and financial matters, that were essential to ensure the provision of services to the public, he could give only low priority to the matter of the division of the departmental quarters. He does not accept that the division of the quarters was a relatively simple operation. He believes that it was a very complicated and sensitive administrative matter and that any hasty decision taken without careful consideration would have seriously affected staff morale and created staff conflicts between the Lands Department and the City and New Territories Administration bringing unbearable domestic hardship and inconvenience to those officers and their families who might have had to vacate their quarters after a short period of occupation.
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