The division was chiefly responsible for coordinating the distribution of the British fleet globally and for the general day-to-day, movements of each of the Royal Navy's units as ordered by the Board of Admiralty, and acted-upon initially by the Chief of the War Staff later Chief of the Naval Staff.

The division had to ensure that accurate information was constantly available at all times, this included the positions and conditions of all the most important ships.

): A more detailed breakdown of the distribution of work allocated within the division to the various staff sections can be seen below as of 1917:[8] Sailing orders for H.M. ships (referred by M. Branch).Refits, docking, repairs etc.

(a) Disposition of guns, lights, mines, booms, etc., and personnel necessary for these; (b) Examination service at all ports; (c) Traffic regulations (see also A.D.O.D.l and Section 4).

Primary source for this article is by Harley Simon, Lovell Tony, (2017), Operations Division (Royal Navy), dreadnoughtproject.org, http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org.