Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1963-1964 — Page 7

Functions

PART I

SUMMARY

THE Registrar General's Department comprises the Land Office, the Companies, Trade Marks, Patents, Marriage, and Births and Deaths Registries, and the Offices of the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy and Companies Winding-up, the Official Trustee, and the Official Solicitor in Lunacy. With the exception of the Marriage and Births and Deaths Registries all these Offices and Registries are, along with the Head- quarters of the Department, located on the 6th and 11th floors of the Central Government Offices, West Wing, Lower Albert Road, Victoria. The locations of the Marriage and Births and Deaths Registries are given in Parts VIII and IX relating to these Registries.

Staff

2. At the end of the year the establishment of the Department con- sisted of the Registrar General, a Deputy Registrar General, three Senior Legal Assistants, eleven Legal Assistants, a Senior Assistant Registrar, twenty-six Assistant Registrars, two Executive Officers and 205 other officers. There was also a supernumerary staff of one Assistant Registrar General, one Legal Assistant, three Assistant Registrars and fourteen other officers. Table I shows how this staff, permanent and supernumerary, totalling 269 officers, was distributed among the various Branches of the Department on 31st March 1964. As indicated thereon vacancies existed for an Assistant Registrar General, a Senior Legal Assistant, four legal Assistants and four Photographers.

General Review

3. During the year under review the trade, industry, population, and general well-being of the Colony continued to increase vigorously, with the natural result that there were more land transactions, companies, trade marks, marriages and births registered than ever before. To com- plete a generally happy picture of progress and prosperity, the total number of deaths, the crude death rate, and the infantile mortality rates all declined, and although there were more bankruptcies and compulsory liquidations than in 1962-63 the number remained quite small.