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43
GENERALA ADMANISTRATION
The first few months of my tenure of office were, at the
request of the Public Health Committee, devoted to an exhaustive
enquiry into the administration of the Department, with a view
to its better equipment with staff and the modernisation of its
methods. This was a somewhat exceptional task to undertake,
and proved rather more formidable than I had anticipated. At
the same time certain alterations were imperative, and had my
predecessor been remaining in office, there is little doubt but
what he would have effected many of these himself. The Public
Health Department of St. Marylebone has gradually acquired
duties and responsibilities in excess of those obtaining in most
other Metropolitan Boroughs, notably the supervision and control
of the public underground conveniences and verminous persons
baths, the removal of dust, and the drainage of new as well as of
old buildings. With the exception of the first, I feel bound to
state that it is only proper that they should be under the control
of the Public Health Department. At the same time the worknecessarily
inseparable from the adequate supervision of these
matters subtracts a good deal of time from that which is available
for one's daily work, and by so doing limits to a some what
undesirable degree the time which one would like to give to
problems for which a Medical Officer of Health has had more
ad hoc training. At the request of the Chairman of the Public
Health Committee, your Medical Officer of Health prepared a
report early in the year, dealing with the whole of the administration
of the Department. In this report attention was drawn
to the fact that the staff of the department was inadequate to
deal with the work which ought to be carried out. After a very
full consideration of the recommendations contained in this
report, in which your Chairman, the Rev. J. A. Beaumont, M.A.,
and the Members of the special Sub-Committee appointed to
deal with it (Councillors Helsdon, Lea-Smith, Colonel Maude
and Dr. Swanton) took a keen personal interest, and spent
a very considerable amount of time, a scheme for the re-apportionment
of duties and for an increase of staff was carried
through the Council.
A very considerable amount of the re-organization of the
Department consisted in mere re-arrangement of duties, so that
officers who once took up a matter should carry it through to
completion, without having the opportunity of divesting themselves
of responsibility at an uncertain stage. Roughly speaking, so