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THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM
FOREST
Madam Mayor, ladies and gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my report for the year 1968.
The year was dominated for senior staff by two factors.
One was the deluge of paper to do with re-organisation, of which the Seebohm Committee's
Report, the Ministry of Health Green paper and the department's own Organisation and Methods
survey were the most substantial. The hours of work needed to digest and assess these was only
a foretaste of the amount of time and effort to be needed for discussing them and assimilating the
reports about comments on the reports, reports on those etc.
The other was the intensity with which attention focussed on an already present need for
economy in the Council's services; this also caused a lot of work, The strains put on senior staff
in all the Council's departments caused me some anxiety during the year, as the threat to their
health was real, only to be surpassed this current year from a further intensification of the same
problem.
As regards re-organisation of the Social Services the Government's proposals are still
awaited. The proposals with regard to our own department were given much thought and some
committee consideration, but the major changes were not possible during 1968. Many minor
improvements in procedure have of course been implemented over the last two years, and some of
these, often suggested by our own staff, also appear in the M.S.U. proposals.
Consideration of the shortage of money has been depressing, but as this report makes
clear we have much of which we can be proud and even where, as often, the evident need or the
public demand show the service to be inadequate by modern standards, there is no case to undervalue
the enormous amount of good work done by the Council's staff. Our despondency should be
realistic if real. But facts force an enquiry into priorities.
What should the Council's strategy be to promote in Waltham Forest the maximum Health
and Welfare of its people?
It is at once clear that to thumb through the estimates of the Health and Welfare Committee
is far too narrow an approach. There will always be inadequate material resources while attention
is focussed on what public funds are not providing. Moreover statutory or organised voluntary
services can only be a superstructure. The basic foundation is the extent to which a community
cares for itself. First attention should go to the foundations.
For the social services to flourish an attempt must be made to slow the enormous migration
of borough residents and to stabilise the population. Communities cannot be created by planners,
preachers or politicians but primarily by stopping the human stones rolling so that they can gather
some moss. Until this happens people are vulnerable to the hazards of life — be they high rents,
disablement or hardening of the arteries — and helplessly expect tailor-made solutions from the
public purse.
The most obvious of the ways of attacking this problem is to make the borough such a
nice place that people wish to stay — all people, but with emphasis on the professional classes
so important to medical and social work. With regard to the environment I must press for improvements
of social convenience and aesthetic appeal with all the vigour that my predecessors pressed
for its improvement hygienically, and this for solid reasons of Health and Social Welfare.
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