Page 18
1.29. To further increase productive work at the expense of purely supervisory duties, 2 professional officers of the Technical Audit Unit have been seconded to perform more urgent tasks. At one stage, because of secondment and leave, the Unit was reduced at professional level to the Chief Technical Examiner and one Technical Examiner, but the situation is improving.
1.30. To summarize the preceding paragraphs, the problems of staff shortage, while not solved, have been relieved in four ways:
(a) Diverting staff from purely supervisory to productive functions
(b) Abandoning for the time being some of these supervisory functions
(c) Employing private practitioners to undertake specific duties where these can be isolated and dealt with as a comprehensive whole
(d) Delegating responsibilities to a lower level than would otherwise be considered prudent.
Theoretically, the problem could be solved by the approval of a larger establishment, but in practice, it is proving most difficult at this moment in time to recruit qualified personnel to the Government service. This lack of enthusiasm seems common to both local and expatriate staff, and with respect to the former, there seems no doubt that in the height of a building boom, service in private enterprise seems more attractive. This provides a greater capacity which, again in theory, Government can make use of, but there is a limit to the work which can be given to consulting engineers, private architects, and quantity surveying firms. In addition, with the rapid rise in construction costs, which in some cases have risen more than 100% since 1968, the rise in fees payable to private firms far exceeds the increase in Government salaries. Nevertheless, the principle of reducing the level of Government staff to that necessary to perform the basic load of Government work and employing consulting firms to take care of the 'peaks' from this basic load is still probably the most economic.
STAFF
1.31. The total establishment of the P.W.D. has now risen to 11,300, of whom 700 are professional or assistant professional officers. Occupants of Superscale posts, distribution of staff, and rates of pay
7
Pag 18
1.29. To further increase productive work at the expense of purely supervisory duties, 2 professional officers of the Technical Audit Unit have been seconded to perform more urgent tasks. At one stage, because of secondment and leave the Unit was reduced at professional level to the Chief Technical Examiner and one Technical Examiner but the situation is improving.
1.30. To summarize the preceding paragraphs, the problems of staff shortage, while not solved, have been relieved in four ways:
(a) Diverting staff from purely supervisory to productive functions (b) Abandoning for the time being some of these supervisory
functions
(c) Employing private practitioners to undertake specific duties where these can be isolated and dealt with as a comprehensive whole
(d) Delegating responsibilities to a lower level than would otherwise
be considered prudent.
Theoretically the problem could be solved by the approval of a larger establishment but in practice it is proving most difficult at this moment in time to recruit qualified personnel to the Government service. This lack of enthusiasm seems common to both local and expatriate staff and with respect to the former there seems no doubt that in the height of a building boom service in private enterprise seems more attractive. This provides a greater capacity which, again in theory, Government can make use of but there is a limit to the work which can be given to consulting engineers, private architects and quantity surveying firms. In addition, with the rapid rise in construction costs which in some cases have risen more than 100% since 1968, the rise in fees payable to private firms far exceeds the increase in Govern- ment salaries. Nevertheless the principle of reducing the level of Government staff to that necessary to perform the basic load of Government work and employing consulting firms to take care of the 'peaks' from this basic load is still probably the most economic.
STAFF
1.31. The total establishment of the P.W.D. has now risen to 11,300 of whom 700 are professional or assistant professional officers. Occupants of Superscale posts, distribution of staff and rates of pay
7
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