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far as the clerical staff is concerned, the chief clerk is now
responsible for work in connection with committee meetings,
accounts and petty cash, orders and requisitions, convenience
registers and records, vital statistics, statutory notices, and
general interviews. The assistant clerk is responsible for
infectious disease notifications, forms and registers, complaints
and the "follow-up" book connected therewith, drainage records
and plans, and office stock. The junior clerk is responsible for
the correspondence, which has increased to more than double
the amount during the past year, the outworkers' lists which
are exceedingly numerous and are becoming more so every
year, and the indexing of various books, etc. An office
boy has been added to the staff to do some of the more
elementary clerical work. The card system, which had been
invading the department in a manner such as to virtually
displace every other system, has been checked in its growth,
on account of certain obvious disadvantages which are inseparable
from it. It may be worth while mentioning here
that in cases involving departmental, or it may even be legal,
interference, entries in a register, for example, of certain special
premises subject to licensing should be made in a certain and
definite order as regards time, so that interpolation of additional
facts can only be made in a manner which is obvious at a
glance.
By far the most important alteration effected in the routine
work of the department has been the establishment of a followup
book, and more recently of follow-up cards, so that the
progress in connection with any particular complaint can be at
once checked. It has, one fears, been far too common a
thing in the past for a complaint, owing to the difficulty
in enforcing the remedy, to gradually fall into the list of
forgotten papers, and never to get remedied at all. At present,
however, any complaint which is made is at once recorded on a
card and in a register under a numerical heading, and until it is
actually written off in that register as having been completed to
the satisfaction of the Inspector or your Medical Officer of
Health, it is never allowed to go out of sight. This is purely a
business procedure and is analogous to the system adopted by
most business houses of keeping in touch with their customers
by repeated letters and advertisements until they have attained
their object or obviously failed to make any impression. It was
found that the inspectorial staff was quite inadequate to carry
out the work which has to be done in this important Metropolitan
Borough, and a re-arrangement and certain additions to it were
recommended. An Outdoor Superintendent has been appointed
whose duties, inter alia, are that he shall inspect the various
properties of the Committee, the conveniences, public urinals,