View report page

77
Medical Officer of Health shall transmit to the Local Government Board " a copy
of any Special Report made by him." Would you be so good as to inform me
what meaning the Board attach to the word special, or would you kindly inform
me what class of reports it is held to embrace.
I am, &c.,
John F. J. Sykes.
Local Government Board,
Whitehall, S.W.
30th March, 1900.
Sir,
I am directed by the Local Government Board to advert to your letter
of the 19th ultimo with reference to the meaning of the word "special" in
Article 18 (16) of their Order of the 8th December, 1891, prescribing Regulations
as to Medical Officers of Health in London.
In reply, I am to state that for the purposes of the Article referred to reports
which deal only with individual nuisances or the smaller details of sanitary work,
as also reports which are made by the Medical Officer of Health in the ordinary
course, including monthly, quarterly, or other short period routine reports, need
not be regarded as "special" reports, copies of which are to be sent to the Board
and to the London County Council, unless they happen to include mention of
some unusual matter or event that has occurred during the period.
Reports, however, that are made for any special purpose, such, for instance,
as (1) reports giving an account of the sanitary state of a district, or of any
section of it, and intended to form a basis of systematic work by the Medical
Officer of Health in the future ; (2) reports on the need for adoption or revision of
regulations or of bye-laws, or on their enforcement; (3) reports on schemes dealing
with areas under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, or dealing with the
condition of groups of dwellings of any particular class or in any special locality;
and (4) reports on the occasion of outbreaks of disease and reports advising the
closing of public elementary schools, should, in the Board's view, be considered
“ special.”
I am, &c.,
John Lithiby,
Assistant Secretary.