In its report the Mazengarb Committee said that the establishment a few years ago of a Ministry of Social Welfare, and the urgent need for more preventive work to be done, suggest the possibility of better administration if "child welfare" were given an independent status under the Ministry for Social Welfare.
This suggestion was examined by the Director of Education and by the Superintendent of the Child Welfare Division of the Department of Education. They reported fully to us, and their views are set out below in summarized form.
The strongest arguments that were placed before us in support of the view that child welfare should be a separate and independent Department were to the following effect:
(1) The Superintendent would—as the head of his own Department—be the captain of his own ship subject only to the direction of his own Minister.
(2) The Director of Education has a huge Department of his own to administer, and he cannot be expected to give to child welfare the full measure of attention it should have.
(3) The Minister of Education must in the main find his principal and absorbing interest in the school system, and he could hardly devote to child welfare the same degree of attention that could be expected from the Minister of Social Welfare.
(4) There would be times when the Superintendent must find it burdensome to have to work through a Department with far-reaching special interests of its own.
(5) The public standing and prestige of the Superintendent of Child Welfare would be enhanced if he were recognized as the head of his own independent Department.
The arguments on the other side may be summarized in the following way:
(1) Child welfare by itself would make a relatively small Department and as such it might tend to become inbred and to stagnate.