STATE AS PRINTER
WASTE DISCOVERIES IN BRITAIN 6,000,000 PAMPHLETS SCRAPPED. The Parliamentary Committee ap pointed by the House of Commons to investigate waste in Government printing and publications visited the Government printing establishments of which there are now three in London and one at Harrow. During the cur rent year the estimates of the Department provide for an expenditure of £480,000 on these works, £150,000 be-
ing for the purchase and upkeep of machinery and £330,000 for wages. Before the war the Stationery Ofrros, which is responsible for all Government printing and publications, had the work done by private firms on contracts. Only recently has it embarked on the new policy of having printing works of its own. Experience shows (says the Daily Mail) that the work done in Government establishments is more costly than that done by private firms on contract, and there is a strong opinion aomng the members of the Parliamentary Committee that the Government should revert to the old system. This view will probably be embodied in their report to be issued shortly. It is stated that the Stationery Office has received an offer from a company to buy the Harrow works at a sum greater in excess of what the Government paid for it-, The estimates for the Stationery Office for this year provide for a net expenditure of £4,844,104, as compared with £1,055,708 in 1913-14. There is, however, a reduction from last year’s estimate of £436,338. Of the vote salaries and wages account for £734, 000, as against less than £50,000 before the war, printing for public De-
partments costs £1,215,000 against £360,000 and paper and office supplies for public Departments have increased from £392,000 to £2,200,003. The Parliamentary Committee has discovered some remarkable examples of waste in Government printing during the war. Two are typical. The Food Ministry ordered 6,000,000 copies of one pamphlet, and when they were ready owing to an error in-the “copy”'by an official of the Ministry,' all of them had to be scrapped. Anot- 1 her Department ordered 1,000,000 conies of a large document, of which only, 20,000 were used. 1
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Greymouth Evening Star, 10 August 1920, Page 7
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352STATE AS PRINTER Greymouth Evening Star, 10 August 1920, Page 7
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