The Committee on Aging of the Department coordinates activities related to the great increase in the numbers and proportion of older people that has characterized America in recent years. Recognizing that the rapidly growing number of aged persons in the population poses new challenges of great significance to the Nation in social and family responsibility, in health, education, employment, and income maintenance, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare initiated a study of the Department's Committee on Aging during the fiscal year. In June 1955, a departmental order designated an Assistant Secretary to head a reorganized committee made up of the heads of the Department's constituent agencies to advise the Secretary, develop programs of departmental action, and to serve as a clearinghouse for information and aid the States, local communities, and voluntary organizations in programs for the benefit of the Nation's senior citizens. During the year, the Committee issued a pamphlet entitled "Aging— A Community Responsibility and Opportunity," completed a revision of its 500-item "Selected References on Aging," and commenced a new "Fact-Book on Aging," an "Inventory of Official State Groups in Aging," and "An Inventory of Federal Programs and Activities in Aging." The Committee also maintained its extensive program of public information and consultation with foundations, organizations, and State and local governments. The Department was a cosponsor of the eighth annual Conference on Aging of the University of Michigan. One of the most significant developments was the initiation by the Department of an approach toward closer coordination of the activities of all Federal departments in the field of aging. A plan was presented to the sub-Cabinet by the Department for the organization of an InterDepartmental Working Group on Aging, and approval was obtained. At the invitation of the Secretary, 10 departments and agencies designated representatives to the Working Group. The first two meetings were held at the Department, on June 10 and July 15. The initiation of the Working Group quickly demonstrated the interrelationship of Federal programs and the need for closer coordination. Plans were commenced for placing the Working Group on a more formalized and permanent basis. International Activities.-"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks at an American picture or statue?" Such was, in 1820, Sydney Smith's now-famous criticism of the United States. He continued by inquiring derisively, "What does the world yet owe to American physicians and surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered?" Since Smith asked his questions, the world has come to respect, not only American writing and art but American education, science, and medicine as well. Every year thousands of people from many lands, experts and students alike, journey to the United States to study developments in health, education, and social welfare. This Department is proud to be one of their principal "ports of call." This year, for example, the Department supervised the programs of study and training of 174 United Nations Fellows. In all, some 3,464 foreign visitors received training planned or supervised by the Department. In addition, about 400 American technicians in health, education, and social welfare were recruited for foreign assignments with the International Cooperation Administration. Technical assistance missions in 38 free nations were aided in this manner. Interdepartmental Activities.-Two matters of interdepartmental concern that should be recorded occurred during the year. One was the participation by the Department in a study made by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce on the problems of low-income farm families. The report of the Secretary of Agriculture, which contained summaries of work of the committees of the three participating departments, was published in early June 1955. It pointed out that the joint study provides an excellent base for the development of specific plans for definitive action to deal effectively with the difficulties encountered by low-income farm families. The other was the establishment of the President's Committee on Migratory Labor. The Committee included the Secretary of Labor, as chairman; the Secretary of Agriculture; the Secretary of the Interior; the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency; and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The formation of this Committee constituted a first step toward considering and dealing with the problem of migrant labor-a problem that for 50 years had been under study and investigation but had failed to command the continuing attention of the Federal Government. During this year the Department also participated actively in the work of the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations-the Kestnbaum Commission. The Commission gave special attention to the various grant-in-aid programs, and the Department prepared extensive analyses of its activities for the use of the Commission and reviewed and commented upon the Commission's proposals and recommendations. It is gratifying to note that after such thorough study the Commission found relatively little wrong with the Department's programs. Most of the Commission's recommendations were in accord with views of this Department. The report of the Commission should go far toward promoting a better understanding of the Department's work and its relationship to the several States. Progress in Management Of the important and far-reaching proposals for government reorganization proposed by the Hoover Commission, 13 were applicable to the work of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare without any further action required by other agencies of government or Congress. At the close of the fiscal year these proposals were under careful study by the Department. Congress appropriated $2.1 billion to the Department during this fiscal year, for all purposes. In addition, receipts of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund totaled nearly $5.6 billion and disbursements totaled nearly $4.5 billion. Of the funds appropriated by Congress, 89 percent was distributed to States, communities, institutions, and individuals, in the form of grants, scholarships, traineeships, etc. At the end of the fiscal year, the Department had 39,927 full-time employees working in its offices, hospitals, and laboratories throughout the Nation and overseas. Nine regional offices coordinated activities throughout the Nation. An organization of such size, dealing with complex matters vital to the well-being of every citizen, requires the best possible structure and management. More efficient, effective, and economical operations were constant goals of the Department during the 1955 fiscal year. The first comprehensive and long-range study of the Department's managerial responsibilities was made this year by the consulting firm of Cresap, McCormick & Paget. The Office of the Comptroller was established to give increased attention on behalf of the Secretary to all budgetary and fiscal matters. The Office of Administration was reorganized to provide more effective guidance to the units of the Department with respect to such problems as organization, work planning, and executive development. In addition to the special surveys and reorganizations described elsewhere in this report, inventories were made of real and personal property for which the Department is responsible and a survey was completed of the procedures for auditing the Department's grants-inaid to the States. A Departmental Staff Manual on Physical Security was issued, containing detailed information concerning the Department's physical security program, policies, and procedures. Net increases in staff were necessary only at the National Institutes of Health and the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, in both cases because of new legislation involving major expansions of program. During the year, cash awards totaling $14,250 were made to 350 employees who suggested better ways of doing the Department's job. Estimated savings as a result of employees' suggestions amounted to $119,998, and most of these savings will recur annually. There were also many improvements not measurable in dollars that were rewarded by cash awards. Illustrative economies made in the course of the Department's operations this year include: 1. Installation of an electronic data processing system in the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance which will cut costs by more than $1 million annually. 2. Freeing 9,775 pieces of office equipment, valued at $651,160, for reuse elsewhere in the Government. 3. Turning in an estimated $41,855 to the Treasury from the sale of useless records as waste paper. 4. A host of reductions in the volume of paperwork. For example, the variety of postcards used by the States to report morbidity data to the Public Health Service was cut from 82 to 5. From the standpoint of the general management of the Department, as distinguished from individual problems associated with specific programs, perhaps the major concern is with the important and continuing task of welding together the many programs of the new Department into an operating whole. The job remained complicated because of the width and the breadth of programs which fall within the Department's responsibilities. These programs cover a spectrum as broad as the human needs-and, indeed, the human aspirations-of the many millions of Americans who every day, in one way or another, are touched by the work of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Although much, certainly, remained at the end of the year to be accomplished—as will, indeed, always be true in a changing and dynamic society-it can be recorded that substantial progress was made in the endeavor to give coherence and unity to the management of the Department and to enhance the effectiveness of its work on behalf of the American people. |