After the Second World War, the Council returned to its pre-war form but without any elected members. The work of the Sanitary Department of the government began to separate out from the medical and health service. On 28 May 1946, the Council met for the first time after the Japanese occupation. It was given power to carry out all its old duties – cleaning, burying the dead, running bath houses and public lavatories, hawker control – as well as some new ones, such as the use of bathing beaches throughout Hong Kong.