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a formidable undertaking. The Reviewing Committee found no need for radical changes
in the staffing structure, although some changes in numbers and gradings as well as detailed
improvements in methods and procedures were recommended. The original decision to
permit the largest practical measures of decentralisation of services by dividing London
into nine divisions—about 80 per cent, of the staff worked in services locally controlled—
was found to be sound.
During the next five years, Ministerial Working Parties published reports which, although
full achievement of their aims has not as yet been realised, have profoundly affected the
approach to staff training and deployment in several vital sections of the Council's Public
Health department. In 1956 the report of the Jameson Committee on the existing and
future functions of the health visiting service was published. The Committee's recommendations
envisaged that the field work of the health visitor would include health teaching and
social advice for the whole family and have an important place in mental hygiene and the
care of the elderly. To fit the health visitor for her enlarged role, revised training arrangements
were proposed which were eventually instituted by the Health Visiting and Social
Work (Training) Act, 1962. In the light of the Committee's advice on remuneration, a
national pay award in 1957 secured a significant salary increase for health visitors. The
Jameson Report was followed by the publication in 1959 of the report of the Younghusband
Committee on the field of work, recruitment and training of social workers. This Committee
recognised the serious deficiency of social workers of all kinds and among their proposals
for stimulating recruitment were measures for improved training facilities and better
career prospects. Although no specific proposals were made, negotiation of new salaries
was recommended. The Council already had a coherent staffing structure for its social
workers based on grades reflecting various levels of responsibility and no fundamental
change in its own structure was considered necessary. Even so, the Committee's general
recommendations, notably those on training, had a marked effect on the work of the
department's staff division.
In 1960 new staffing arrangements were introduced to meet proposals for the reorganisation
and development of the department's mental health work in the light of the
Mental Health Act, 1959. This reorganisation involved the decentralisation of existing
services to the nine health divisions, in each of which a mental health social worker team
was set up under the leadership of a divisional mental welfare officer. Central co-ordination
and supervision of mental health social work were provided for in the appointment of a
principal mental welfare officer. Three years later a comprehensive review of the mental
health services by the O. & M. branch of the Clerk of the Council's department resulted
in revised salaries and a substantial increase in staffing for statutory and community care
work. There was considerable difficulty, however, in recruiting experienced staff to fill
the additional positions and in spite of intensive advertising there were still vacancies in
1965.
The last and by far the most important event affecting the work of the central staff division
and the divisional staff sections was the passing of the London Government Act, 1963
under which the department's services fell to be transferred to 15 new authorities, 12 Inner
London boroughs and the City of London, the Inner London Education Authority and the
Greater London Council. By 1965 the total staff had increased by more than 1,000 to well
over 8,000 and the exacting task of arranging for their transfer to the new authorities in
accordance with the Act and the regulations issued under it and bearing at the same time
the normal load of staff work was accomplished without additional staff. It is not possible
in this brief summary of the department's staff work to detail the processes of the staff
transfer arrangements which were, of course, intimately related to the transfer of the
various services. Over a period of 18 months, the transfer arrangements were planned,
developed and kept under constant review by senior officers. In the final phase, as the
momentum of transfer work gathered, staff at different levels were increasingly occupied
with the work and despite their feelings of uncertainty about their own future this massive
task was well done.
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