Poor Law Administration Print E-mail
The Whitehaven News - Thursday, August 14, 1913

POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION
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SUGGESTIONS BY A
DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE.

 The Departmental Committee appointed by Mr. BURNS for the suggestion of amendments to be made in the Poor Law has submitted its first report, in which several important matters are dealt with.
 
 The committee recommended that children above the age of five shall not be maintained in any institution which contains adult inmates, except where the child is detained for not more than six weeks as an inmate of the sick wards or where there are medical reasons to justify it. They also suggest an alteration in the regulations as to sick and lunatic wards, &c., the main object of which is to provide for the extension of the principle of separate individual records, by the introduction of the system of card filing &c., was largely replacing the keeping of books. The committee propose that the new principle should be generally put into practice, in the future be kept. They suggest also the reintroduction of the regulation which prohibits the entrusting of nursing duties to inmates of an institution.
 
 Important departures are recommended from the existing system of house committees. “We propose,” the report says,” that a separate house committee shall be appointed to administer, subject, of course, to the approval of the Guardians, each Poor Law Institution, that the Committee shall be appointed annually, and that it shall consist of a limited number of members, the maximum being twenty-four, or, in the case of a large Board, of Guardians, on half of the whole Board.
 
 They propose to substitute for the old arrangement a system of reports from the principle officers of the institution to be made at each meeting of the House Committee and transmitted by them with a covering report to the Guardians. At half yearly intervals further reports of the progress of the institution should be made by the master, the medical officer, and the chaplain, and similarly transmitted with a general half-yearly report of the House Committee to the Guardians. It is anticipated that this system of reports shall lead to an increase of administrative efficiency, and also to the accumulation in each Union of valuable statistics and other information.”
 
 
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