Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1966-1967 — Page 49

built-up areas where circumstances do not offer them the same oppor- tunities to set up their stalls. Although responsibility for controlling hawkers lies with the Urban Council and the Urban Services Department (including the Hawker Control Force where it is deployed) with the support of the Police Force, the Resettlement Department is inevitably closely involved. The Urban Council is considering plans for a new approach and a long-term solution to the problem: meanwhile, the department has consulted the Council on certain interim measures and is actively studying others with a view to improving the position with- out prejudicing the long-term plans.

ESTATE MANAGEMENT

101. Although the Commissioner for Resettlement is responsible for the management of resettlement estates in the New Territories, in the urban areas he acts as the agent of the Urban Council, which is the competent authority for this purpose. Policy decisions made and prec- edents set by the Urban Council have a strong persuasive effect on management outside the urban areas, quite apart from the practical need for uniformity. An Assistant Resettlement Officer is in immediate charge of each estate supported by varying numbers of Resettlement Assistants and Student Resettlement Assistants. Seven Resettlement Officers are each responsible for supervising the work in a group of estates and they are in turn directly responsible to an Assistant Commissioner, who is a member of the Administrative Service, and is in overall charge of the Estates and Cottage Areas Division. There is a Senior Resettlement Officer in this Division who is responsible for advising the Assistant Commissioner on all departmental matters, for compiling statistical returns, and for keeping a general eye on the work of the estates, in addition to many other duties.

102. In the older estates a Resettlement Assistant or Student Resettle- ment Assistant is responsible for two Mark I or Mark II blocks, and is the Government's closest contact with a population of four or five thousand people living in about a thousand individual rooms. These officers are trained to regard themselves not merely as rent collectors and enforcers of tenancy conditions, but also as friends and counsellors of the occupants of their blocks.

103. The manning scales that have been laid down reflect the different designs of the buildings. In the Mark III blocks, where there are no windows opening onto the access corridor and an officer may therefore have to make several visits to inspect a room, the scale is one officer

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