THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 213, 5 September 1912, Page 7

THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

COMMISSION'S REPORT. & BOARD OF MANAGEMENT. XO REPLACE CABINET CONTROL. INCREASING efficiency. (By Telegraph.—rerlla-mentar? Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The report of the Public Service Commission, containing 78 pages of recommendations, the evidence being confidential, ,vas presented to Parliament toBight. It states that the inquiry was •welcomed by the Service, and the Commission was greatly struck with the high type, both as regards character and ability of many of the departmental heads and those holding responsible positions in the Service. The report states that there is ft great tendency for each department to magnify and glorify itself. Every jD$iH department and every minor department tries to run its affairs as a (jjjtinct and separate concern, instead of being a branch of one large- business, «(jod men find themselves fixtures, their promotion blocked actually because of -their ability, while other departments 1 viere the work is rapidly increasing - find a great difficulty in getting suitable men. It many departments, too, there ;. 5s a tendency to keep the officers, especially a number of the younger men, tea year after year at the one class of iro'rk, instead of adopting the usual business practice of putting them through us many different classes of wfirk as possible, so that they may become capable all-round men. • • "BACK DOOR" APPOINTMENTS. . the report points out that the Civil fervice Act of ISS<> provided for entry bj , : competitive exams, hut temporary hinds' were employed without examination, and in 1007. when (he Public SerTice'Classification and Superannuation lit was passed, all those officers who ]ad "been employed as temporary hands, bftfc *ho had remained on permanently, were made permanent members of the Public Service, provided that they had been employed continuously for not. less than five years, and it was also provided that all those who had been employed for less than five years would become permanent members of the Public Service wlen they had completed five years' service. The position therefore under this ; Act was that all those officers who had been put on originally as temporary . lands,.and who had romp in. as officer's (if the Service call it. by the "hark door," were put in the. way of becoming permanent officers of the Service on exactly the SiiKe footing as those officer? who came m after passing the junior Civil Befyite exam. ' • BQJfOTIONS FROM OUTSIDE. ■ rhs-tegielatiou of the 'nineties created sfetetal.entirely new department*, and necessitated a large increase in the staff I of'the Public Service, and it is possible - : fi),,l .Certain extent it was neces- ' — fliifio'appoint .some outsiders to till ' pdslkitt and~cope with the large in- i ircasft of wftrk. At the si mc time, we < US satisfied that, the number of appoint- i Mite made went far beyoud the bounds j if necessity. In a larg? onranifiation < like the Public Service it should be ( quite possible to meet all demands for ■ exteMioiis hy promotions from within, < • 4nd we feel quite satisfied that if th : s method had been adoptpj durinp the ] years that we have referred to it, it i would have resulted in a vast improvement in efficiency of the staff, and . there would not he the discontent that i undoubtedly prevails in the Service to- • 4ay. ■■■■ ; ' PAY AND PROMOTION. ! ■": There is no uniform system for mak- , iag promotions in the Service, and there ', ire considerable differences in pay between different departments sometimes tot to the. head or Minister being fetooii.ieil -or generous. Merit does ; - m count -as' ii should. The passing of , epilations, either departmental or , ojifeide examinations, such as solicitors , and accountancy examinations, do not ] «rry weight and bring the promotion -, that might reasonably be expected, . The result is that many more able , jeiiig fellows finding their advancement , MOW get out of the Service at the first . .■"•opportunity, and it is quite a common ', " : . occurrence to find young men in tl?e , ' Knice studying for law. accountancy, , .other "examinations, not with the ( object of getting on in thp Service, out , Wth the object of obtaining decrees , «at will enable them to get out of it. "Iβ. Ootflitti&sion found that "in many »cases the salary paid has no relationship to the work done. JVhen ill- 1 weasee in pay are gning they are usually . aoied out.at so much a head all round, •' Hut when th? head* of departments < ■"Hot the work to be done in the lower ' pades of the Service it is generally i p*irt<j tho3e who have the "capacity I ; w do it, regardless of th* pay received. < '75 could hardly say that the salaries 1 ■ : M i wh&le 'are either too high or too ] ,i-* ,but they badly need adjusting, and 1 •|« should be pa.id for the work they i ?o. ; and hot for the time they have been a tie' Service." ' ] riv , * 4 " 68 of heads of departments and 1 ■fa»V holding responsible positions are, 1 ■ « tojj G&ihniission'e opinion, inadequate, ( -'ORGANISATION OF SERVICE. \ Efficiency -combined with economy is ;H«n as the basis of organisation by the Wmissioners. On these heads the Com™ssion remarks:—"lt is to our nund i «sential that there should be one con- 1 trolling head for the whole business of '■ we country to hold the whole service < l °g«ner, ana make it won: as one well- > oiled and efficient machine. We are quite ' wnsfied that a Cabinet is not, and never < ••<*» be, an efficient controlling business ' t! I' The, work which the controlling < £** 61 the public sen-ice has to do is '■ "►attend to (a) the business policy; fb) ! ■'"c general organisation and working ' metnods, and (c) the. staff engagements, ' Pfomot lo6? , transfers, and the general Madliag of officers. This is the work "experts trained in the business of , c country, and in business methods &}"?"> nnd this work cannot be at- ! «Bdcd to efficiently by Ministers who in ' ™st cases have not had the necessary , \vn l-° ,JS twining for thp administrative Mr \vluch is entailed in management., j .ii., J? ,8 ,s tttf, most important matter of declares the Commission, which goes ] onto say: "We think that a Board of ' Ss s £ ment should be set up which ; ™"a be the managing head of the whole • wtermnent service. We would suggest ■ wm this Board should be composed of , tf\i. men, one of whom should , f.. the ablest man that coula • * obtained in the service. This i ifE?. 0 ? . on the Board ehoald ■ i to the prize position in the whole public t ■ •Kvicc. and carry a higher salary than :

any other with the possible exception of; that of the general manager of railways. The two other members of the Board should be chosen from outside, and they should be men of wide business experience who have, had training in large organisations and are accustomed to the handling of a large staff. One of these two should be chairman of the Board. This Board would, therefore, have as its members two men of thorough business training, chosen for their organising ability, and one from the public service, who would know its requirements, and be thoroughly familiar with all its details, and who would possess a good working knowledge of the personnel of its Officers. The members of the Board should give their whole time to their work, and have no other duties. "The Minister for any particular Department would, under "Cabinet, be responsible for the policy of that department, but the work of carrying out that policy should be left in the hands of the Board of Management. The Board of Management should, we think, be under Cabinet, and not responsible to Parliament only, and its actions should be subject to review by Cabinet. POLITICAL 'INTERFERENCE. -Our only fear in this matter is that the subjection to Cabinet may not entirely remove the suspicion of political interference. Our hope is that it will, and we want to make it. perfectly clear that it is in this hope and belief that we make the suggestion. There are two dangers. On the one hand a Board free from all control by Cabinet may become too autocratic, and may even drift into a position antagonistic to, or at least not in sympathy with, the Government of the day. On the other hand, Cabinet may desire and decide to do certain things which, in the opinion of the members of the Board, or a majority of them, would savour of interference with the management. "We think tiiese dangers can be met by having the position of each clearly defined. It should be provided that in all matters relating to the control and management of the service the Board shall have absolute and undisputed power, whilst on the 3ther hand, Cabinet should lay down the policy and direct the work to be done. Cabinet would have the right of veto, but every occasion on which such right is exercised should be reported to Parliament with a full explanation at its first sitting thereafter. If the relative positions of Cabinet and the Board to the service are thus clearly and unmistafcibly set forth, no cause of friction should u-ise, and everything should make for ] aarmony and efficiency appointments."' Discussing the question of appointncnts, the Commission expresses the j spinion respecting permanent appointments that the expert clauses should be ••ery sparingly used, and that no one from outside the service should be apJointed unless it is possible to train him n the service itself, and "expert*" should as a rule be employed only on the larticular work for which they' are appointed. Shorthand writers and typists should all be trained in the service. TRANSFERS AND PROMOTIONS. Under the heading of transfers the :ommission states that there should be ree transfers between the departments, fhe public service should be treated as a vholc, and not as a number of separate rater-tight compartments, and officers of he service should feel that they - are fficers of the public service as a whole.. nd not officers of special departments nly. As for promotions, merit alone aust be the only consideration. Lengtn ■f service must not be taken into acount. They should be judged on their cork alone. Any attempts to use influnce or pressure of any kind in conneeion with promotion should not be istened to; they should be treated as erious offences. The Commission suggests that the sal.rie.s now paid to magistrates are not ufficient to attract to the service the bier class of lawyer, except in a few ases where a lawyer is to a certain exent financially independent, and desires o obtain the position on account of the tatus attached to it. The position hould be open to clerks of Court. AGRICULTURE AXD COMMERCE. Tin's Department contains a staff of 92, drawing on an average a salary rithin a fraction of £300 per man, .-liich is considerably higher than that f any other department. The whole )epartment should be under some man "ho has had outside experience of the working of the different divisions,) lerica.l knowledge alone being of little »c for this position. If stock inspectors nd rabbit and noxious weeds inspector /ould work together and as one force, here would be c. large reduction in lumbers and in travelling expenses- The 'ommission recommends the subsidising f veterinary surgeons instead of having o many paid veterinarian*. PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. Dealing with this Department, which as a permanent staff of 455 member?, he Commission describes as a weak pot the continual referring of small etails to the Minister or to Cabinet. .'he practice of referring all matters nvQlving over £250 in cost to the Minister causes endless delanfl and the Commission recommends that once Pariament and Cabinet has authorised a. articular work the expenditure should c left to the Under-Secreta.ry, -who •ould report what is being done. Under the heading of pre audit and iost audit, the Commissioners declare hat, at present neither one system nor ho other is -complete. Conflicting evienoe was given, but the Commission had o hesitation in declaring themselves in ivour of a post auditA NATIONAL CALAMITY. The custody oi records, the Commis-j ioners declare, requires immediate at-1 ention, especially in connection with ■hp lliajn Government buildings built ntirely of wood, where the bulk of the ecords arc kept. The evidence obaincd was almost unanimously to the ffect that the old strong rooms were uite unfit to resist a fire, and same xpert evidence condemned the new trong rooms in as much as they would re unable to withstand the intense teat. It would be a serious national Jss if they were destroyed. ELASTIC REGULATIONS. To carry out the programme, outlined egislation would be required. Rules .nil regulations should be as elastic as lOßsiWe. The rules that govern the serice iirc hard and fast, and can only <> chanced with great difficulty; thereore fresh legislation should be on bro.id j mc.-. and fi.s simple as possible. The )osninion was spending, roughly, on an iveragp, a, revenue of eleven millions a ear. Imagine, remarked the Commit;ion. an increased efficiency that would aerely mean a reduction of one per cent n expenses, and an addition of one per ent in the efficiency of the service reniered. These comparatively small improvements would amount to £220,000 . year, and accumulate a four per cent. : t would amount to a cum that wouldripe out the present .national debt of i sew Zealand in seventy-one years.J