Use of the special projects team in the Environmental Health Department.

Abstract

HE modern world of the 1980s requires a different approach in the provision of local government -*services than the 1800s and this is particularly true for environmental sanitation. The larger numbers of people and their aspirations coupled with advanced technology in home comfort living conditions, shopping and leisure have a changing need for response and protection. Desperate means were required to deal with disease and squalor in 1835 particularly among the working classes and the poor. Our pioneers served us well in responding to the problems. The earlier needs were eventually translated into statutory functions such as standards for drainage, overcrowding, nuisance and infectious disease controls and as the service developed, food laws, work safety rules, hygiene and public control measures evolved. Methods of administering the various aspects of public health necessitated more and more legislation to provide the various powers of enforcement which in turn provoked a steady clamour of the less fortunate to attain acceptable conditions. Instead of the sanitary policeman covering the beat, organisation and management created departments of managerial, professional and technical staff supported by administrative assistants. Table A shows a typical public health section structure in 1960: