Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1968-1969 — Page 33

72. In addition to those in charge of blocks there is an experienced Resettlement Assistant as second in command to help the officer-in- charge with his general administration; in the largest estates there are two such officers. Another Resettlement Assistant is responsible for stores and sanitation and for supervising the labour force which cleans the common areas of blocks, the courtyards and open spaces. Finally, a Resettlement Assistant is posted to each estate, under the direct supervision of the Treasury Accountant at the departmental .head- quarters, to supervise rent collection and to administer the rent office. Detailed information about rents is given in Chapter 9 and Appendix 4.

73. Estate management brings individual officers into contact with a wide variety of problems. At the estate level, these include hygiene and cleansing, hawker control, encroachments on open space and the personal problems of tenants and disputes between neighbours. Delegation and decentralization have been increasingly emphasized in recent years, and groups and estates are encouraged to maintain direct liaison with the Architectural Office of the Public Works Depart- ment, the Police Force, Urban Services and other associated departments at a practical working level instead of solely from head- quarters.

74. The principal duties of the estate staff are to ensure that rents are paid and that the conditions of tenancy are observed. It is, un- happily, the continual checking which these duties involve that make the most impression on

impression on some of the tenants. On their rounds Resettlement Assistants have to watch out for any changes in the composition of individual households, and for any consequential overcrowding or under-occupation which policy directives require should be met by offering to transfer the family concerned to a room more appropriate to its size. The tenancy conditions are not onerous or unreasonable, the most important being that the rent be paid each month in advance on a set day, that the room may not be transferred or sublet, that it may not be used for any illegal purposes, and that no structural alterations may be made without prior approval. Shops and workshops have to comply with a number of additional special conditions, while restaurants, cafes, fresh food shops and workshops are also bound by the conditions of the appropriate Urban Council or other licence.

75. In most systems of public housing breach of a condition of tenancy way be followed, (although perhaps after a long process) by

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