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PART I GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATION FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF CIVIL AVIATION " (A) The organisation of the Civil Aviation Branch of the Air Department and related services for the efficient discharge of the responsibilities of Government in relation to civil aviation." The Mission came to the early conclusion that the difficulties which have arisen in the administration of civil aviation, to some of which its attention was called, were the result rather of a lack of definition of the several responsibilities of the departments and authorities concerned than of fundamental defects in the organisation itself. Nevertheless, the organisation is in our opinion susceptible of improvement in detail. We would like to make it clear at the outset that we have endeavoured not to concern ourselves with personalities, and especially in proposing a particular form of organisation we have regarded it as an abstract problem, divorced from the personalities of the present officers. CHAPTER I—MAJOR DEPARTMENTAL ORGANISATION 1. In the light of criticisms which have been made from time to time, and having studied the sundry reports and recommendations which have been made concerning the post-war organisation of civil aviation in New Zealand, including in particular the report made in March, 1946, by the present Chief of the Air Staff (Air Vice-Marshal A. de T. Nevill), the Mission considered whether any change in the major departmental organisation of Government was necessary in regard to civil aviation. In the opinion of the Mission, the development and administration of civil aviation in New Zealand do not constitute a problem of sufficient magnitude to justify their allocation to a separate Minister of Civil Aviation as his sole responsibility. An examination of the portfolios held by the fourteen existing Ministers is sufficient for conviction on this point. 2. Nor does the Mission consider that it is necessary at this stage that civil aviation should be the responsibility of a separate department of State. We understand that there are at present some forty-six separate departments of State allocated to the fourteen Ministers. We have been informed that efforts are being directed towards amalgamation and the reduction of the number. It is undoubtedly true that the importance attached by Government to a particular activity of the State and the attention which it receives from Government and the public can be emphasised and increased by making that activity the sole function of a Minister and of a separate department, but the present