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(6) To institute inquiries for a suitable firm of English, consulting engineers competent to undertake the design of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. (c) To recommend to you an advisory panel competent to review the economic and engineering problems related to the improvements of the railway facilities in the Auckland metropolitan area. Facilities were also made available to me to investigate the administrative machinery of such United Kingdom Departments of State whose problems bore some relation to those of the Ministry of Works in New Zealand. These were the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, the Ministry of Health, which, in the United Kingdom, controls housing developments, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the Ministry of Works. In Great Britain I had every assistance from our High Commissioner's Office and from our High Commissioner himself, particularly in regard to the several conferences on the matter of supply which we had with the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Supply in Great Britain. I was also assisted in my various contacts by our Consulting Engineer, Mr. Ranald J. Harvey, and Sir Reginald Stradling, of the Ministry of Works, who, because of his recent visit to New Zealand, had considerable knowledge of our problems. In Canada and the United States I was very ably assisted by our Trade Commissioners in Montreal and Washington respectively, particularly in discussions which took place with the Aluminium Corporation, the United States Steel Corporation, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and other suppliers of steel, both unfabricated and fabricated. You have already had detailed progress reports in regard to the above matters on which some action has already been taken by the Government and on some of which action is still pending. These are further referred to in-the report which follows. ORGANIZATION In my report for last year reference was made to the proposed merger of the Ministry of Works with the Public Works Department. The two offices commenced to function as one organization from Ist April, 1948. The merger has necessitated but little internal reorganization, as their functions were closely interwoven and remain to a great extent unchanged. The Civil Engineering Design Office of the State Hydro-electric Department has been transferred to the Ministry of Works, thus bringing all the civil engineering design work under one Department. Responsibility for hydro-electric design and construction was centralized with the appointment of an Assistant Engineer-in-Chief in charge of both hydro-electric civil design and construction. The engineering and architectural staffs of the Engineering, Architectural, and Housing Construction Divisions have been amalgamated and placed under the control of the Engineer-in-Chief and the Government Architect respectively, with suitable secondments to the Director of Housing for the actual execution of housing work. The land-purchase staffs of all divisions were combined under the control of the Chief Land Purchase Officer and, with a view to facilitating investigations and settlement of claims, much of the combined work has been decentralized to districts under the control of District Land Purchase Officers.

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