§ 61. Ms. Clare Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he is satisfied with the level of staffing in his Department's offices in inner-city areas with high levels of unemployment; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. NewtonAt present the Department's local office complementing system—described in a booklet in the Library—seeks to meet the special difficulties of inner-city offices through "judgment" posts; that is, redeploying the margin of the local office complement to recognise136W particular work situations. The special problems of inner-city offices were considered by a management study completed last year which had been set up because of anxieties about the effectiveness of the present approach. This study was remitted to the team of officials and trade unionists engaged jointly in reviewing the working of the complementing system. As a result it is planned to modify the complementing system to take the special problems of inner-city offices into account in a more exact fashion, based on a separate examination of their staffing needs in the 15-month-long staff inspection or "complement review" of local offices which starts this April.