The Bureau of Supply is part of the Parliament of Milk and Honey.
| Bureau of Supply | |
|---|---|
| Bureau of the Parliament of Milk and Honey | |
| Employees | 33,790 |
| Established | 1961 |
| Headquarters | Commonwealth Materials House, Oslola |
The Bureau of Supply is a bureau of the Parliament of Milk and Honey. It allocates raw materials to the factories of the commons against their production targets. It does not mine anything itself, and its materials come from the mines of the Ministry of Industry, from imports and from its own salvage yards. It was established in 1961 as the Bureau of Materials and Supply, and its allocations have been governed by the Commonwealth Resources Act since 2031.
Materials are allocated every quarter against the targets set by the Bureau of Production. Most of the Commonwealth’s metal ore is mined in Kala, which has large deposits of iron ore, copper, zinc and uranium. Materials that cannot be found at home are imported, and the reserves of the Treasury are enough for nearly five years of imports. Almost all freight between the republics is carried on ships built by Argo Meridian, and Commonwealth Lines also carries loaded freight wagons between the islands on its rail RO/RO vessels.
The bureau’s own depots generally hold only a few weeks of most materials. The much larger and secret stockpiles of the Strategic Materials Reserve are not kept by the bureau, although it allocates the material they release when a stockpile approaches capacity. Allocations are often disputed, and a republic that thinks it has been given too little can only petition the parliament.
Much of the bureau’s work is in its salvage and recovery yards. Since residents take what they want from the shops and leave, most durable goods come back to the yards the same way, as does the scrap of whole factories. Commonwealth people mend and alter a lot of their own clothes at home, and so most of what reaches the yards is furniture, appliances and machinery. Goods that can be mended go to the repair workshops of the Bureau of Distribution, and the metals, glass, paper, plastics and textiles of the rest are recovered and allocated to production again. The bureau is also responsible for the tips and incinerators of the country, which take the household refuse collected by the municipalities, usually by the refuse robots of their Municipal Service Commands.
Because firms cannot set their own skill factor, the only cost under a firm’s control is waste. As such, the bureau weighs the waste it collects from factories and reports it to the National Economic Register. Its records of shop stock thrown away are often used by the Register’s Department of Inspection, which investigates stock fraud and hoarding.
Department of Materials
2,720Records of materials extracted, imported and recovered.
Department of Industrial Supply
5,360Allocation of materials to firms against their production targets; delivery.
Department of Depots
3,060The materials depots; material released from the Strategic Materials Reserve.
Department of Salvage
6,300The salvage yards, tips and incinerators; standards for municipal refuse collection; records of every disposal of shop stock.
Department of Recovery
3,150Recovery of materials from goods past repair.