"We have, through our Sub-Committee, carefully studied the existing practice, organisation of work, duties of personnel and general constitution fof the Legal Department. We are satisfied "that this department efficiently administered and we have hho Immediate material economies to suggest.
The expenditure of this department expenditure on personnel and therefore depends. provided the ganisation Is efficient, on the volume of work to be performed, over which the department itself has no control.
Aport from the Police Division, which is staffed by police officers assigned for that purpose from the Police Force, tore are in the Municipal Advocate's department 8 members of the staff under Letter of Appotntment serving under the Muni cipal Advocate, These 8 consist of 6 Assistant Advocotes, a Chief Clerk ud a Secretary. Th addition, there we Assistant Advocates still on probation who have not yet been given Letters of Appointment. has been shown to us by: statis ties that the work of the Legal Department has more than" doubled singe 1031, whereas the total inereaxe in legal staff since 1928 has. been only three. In 1031, 28.024 amine istrative and criminal cases" were Proveeuted to completion, and the corresponding number of' cases for 1030 Wwax_ 55,608, This means that the six. Trial Advocates and the Court Inspector handled on an aver= age 7,038 eases each during the year 1039, There are six Criminal Courts operating every day, except Sundays: and holidays, which require the ful time service of six Assistant Ade vacates. One Assistant Advoca required for the purpose of acting supernumerary, and another for the purpose of acting as Personnel Assistant and oticer in charge of the Chinese Department of the Ofice Division, Tt Is also to be noted that many of the-legal opinions formerly obtained from legal advisers outside the Council's service are now ob= tained from the Legal Department, which of course means an economy expenditure on legal fees, We have considered two questions connection with salaries. The question of the salary of the Municipal Advocate we are referring four Terms of Service Sub-Committee. We suggest that the Council give eon sideration to the scale of pay of Assistant Advocates.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.