Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1964-1965 — Page 7

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PART I

Functions

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 Headquarters 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, two Assistant Registrars General, three Senior Legal Assistants, eleven Legal Assistants, two Senior Assistant Registrars, twenty-eight Assistant Registrars, two Executive Officers and 234 other officers. There was also a supernumerary staff of one Legal Assistant, six Assistant Registrars and twenty other officers. Table I shows how this staff, permanent and supernumerary, totalling 311 officers, was distributed among the various Branches of the Department on 31st March 1965.

General Review

3. Although the general picture of progress and prosperity was marred by a number of adverse factors the unprecedented succession of typhoons, the imposition by the British Government of a 15% sur- charge on all imports except foodstuffs and raw materials, the rise in the cost of money following upon the raising of the Bank Rate in Britain to 7%, and the banking crisis of February 1965, to mention a few- there is irrefutable statistical evidence of a continued rise in the standard of living during the year. According to the Wage Statistics and Wage Change Index for Selected Industries in March 1965, taking 1958 as the base year=100, the overall index for the industries, dockyards and

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