New offices for Statistics

Press, 27 August 1977, Page 7

New offices for Statistics

Staff of the Statistics De-1 partment in Christchurch will soon be under one roof, with the exception of a few still working on last year’s census. The department’s present Christchurch offices are spread through five buildings in the central city. Its new offices will be on the fifth and sixth floors of the Dominion Mutual Securities building at the corner of Gloucester Street and Colombo Street. Some members of the department’s temporary staff are in the building already, finishing work on the census, but they will move out when the rest of the department moves in. About 200 people work full time for the department in( Christchurch. When a census j is taken this is increased by up to 200 more workers.! Most of the work on the last ! census has been done. No date has been set for

the move to the new office as tenders for some interior alterations have yet to be let. But once the move has been made, it will have brought together the last of the Government offices scattered through the city. The completion of the Housing Corporation building and the Christchurch Transport Board’s Carruca House has enabled the consolidation ' of most of the other departments which had sections scattered in various buildings- . . „ Although the Statistics Department move will bring together its staff, it will still be necessary to find new offices at the time of each census for the extra staff. Almost two-thirds of the i census schedules from j throughout New Zealand in [the last census were dealt with in Christchurch. The rest were handled at Lower Hutt.