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government would not surrender responsibility for, say, Immigration or Inland Revenue; but that other duties were either less clear-cut or simply so expensive as only to be borne by Government - this did not mean that they were not of great interest and concern to local residents. The report proposed that local authorities must be consulted, and enabled to make their views known, on the adequacy of Government’s arrangements or proposals for police and fire-service 'cover', medical, housing and educational facilities (which must silently stretch to financing policy), town-planning and development plans, and public transport. 'Mandatory' executive functions which should be devolved to all local authorities would include:
Public Health
Control and provision of cleansing & sanitary services; latrines, bath & wash houses, laundries, labourers' lines, swimming pools, offensive trades & markets, hawking, ventilation, overcrowding, advertisements, slaughter houses, cemeteries & mortuaries.
Licensing & control of restaurants, tea-houses & cooked food stalls.
Notification of infectious diseases and public vaccination.
Other Licensing Liquor, barber shops, bars, billiard saloons, bowling alleys, cinemas, dance halls, mahjong shops, money-lenders, pawnbrokers, skating rinks & table tennis saloons.
Housing
Management of Government low-cost housing estates.
Other
Weights & Measures & naming of streets.
At first sight this miscellany hardly seemed of major public interest, apart from housing management and sanitation, and certainly no more likely to inspire civic consciousness than did the Urban Council which already had these powers in Victoria and Kowloon (its unofficial membership doubled as the Housing Authority.) However the supplementary list of 'permissive' functions which councils could undertake within laid-down standards promised much more delegation of visible powers from central social service Departments. Under Public
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government would not surrender responsibility for, say, Immigration or Inland Revenue; but that other duties were either less clear-cut or simply so expensive as only to be borne by Government - this did not mean that they were not of great interest and concern to local residents. The report proposed that local authorities must be consulted, and enabled to make their views known, on the adequacy of Governmentís arrangements or proposals for police and fire-service 'cover', medical, housing and educational facilities (which must silently stretch to fingering policy), town-planning and development plans, and public transport. 'Mandatory' executive functions which should be devolved to all local authorities would include:
Public Health
Control and provision of cleansing & sanitary services; latrines, bath & wash houses, laundries, labourers' lines, swimming pools, offensive trades & markets, hawking, ventilation, overcrowding, advertisements, slaughter houses, cemeteries & mortuaries.
Licensing & control of restaurants, tea-houses &
cooked food stalls.
Notification of infectious diseases and public vaccination.
Other Licensing Liquor, barber shops, bars, billiard saloons, bowling alleys, cinemas, dance halls, mahjong
Housing
Other
shops, money-lenders, pawnbrokers, skating rinks & table tennis saloons.
Management of Government low-cost housing
estates.
Weights & Measures & naming of streets.
At first sight this miscellany hardly seemed of major public interest, apart from housing management and sanitation, and certainly no more likely to inspire civic consciousness than did the Urban Council which already had these powers in Victoria and Kowloon (its unofficial membership doubled as the Housing Authority.) However the supplementary list of 'permissive' functions which councils could undertake within laid-down standards promised much more delegation of visible powers from central social service Departments. Under Public
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