The Press Tuesday, October 11, 1921. Retirement of Public Servants.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17273, 11 October 1921, Page 6

The Press Tuesday, October 11, 1921. Retirement of Public Servants.

One of the/speakers at the, gathering - of Post and Telegraph officers on Sofc- • unlay eveoiii&, ~Mr Mcflftennctt,, district. • telegraph engineer, drew attention to one result of the voluntary retirement of * number of offioeitf of the meat whioh'haa reoeived little notice; •V> ®» Department, he said, >as losing ~ men with forty yeai* experience whose j would h«i taken by J®*® withless Kelly, the Chief Pbst- , master, had previously jjointed out that the avenge age of the officers of the Department who were retiringalter forty years' service waa 65i yews, an age, he contended, at which the average conld not be said to have outlived : hiausefttlness tothecountry.This is particularlythe ease intbe instance of men whoee native ability and length j of sem<» ,have gjwen them epecial ;expert or adxninirtraUTe akm, such men,thatik is, as are to be found in numbers among the senior officers of a / gervioe that 1 in some departments de-l j tedinical knowledge of a. high ' standard, and in others requires ability in hamffing laree staffs andiia meeting \ everycl&y neecta of tibo ]sd>lic. NoUiing was widj «t wfenred to, to indicate that the retirement of officers in and elsewhere that is now going on is not perfectly, voluntaiy, but one may take it for granted that men in vigorous health between, L the ages of ffi and 60 would not step out crf a eervice in which tiwre are frequent opportunities for promotion unless the desirableness <rf their dqing eo, i from the point of view ofV effecting economy in the Public Service/ had at least bee» suggested to, them, more or leaa pwutedly. It is, of course, n*oe». that expenditure on the Public gyppe eball be reduced as lap u pos-

sible consistent with the maintenance of efficiency, and in some cases —we are referring now to the Post and Telegraph service throughout the Dominion —the retirement of officers will result in a real saving, because for one reason or another their places will not be filled up. In a good many other instances, however, the value of the saving resulting from the retirement of officers is not so obvious. Each man who retires does so on superannuation, the amount being two-thirds of his average salary during his last three years of service. Someone has to take his place, and there is a general move-up throughout his branch of the department, with the result that the expenditure remains as it was, less, possibly, some small amounts saved in making the successive promotions. But the retired officer's superannuation is drawn from the general superannuation fund, which the Government supports by a subsidy. It is difficult to believe that when this fund was established, it was realised that a time would come when dozens of experienced officers, most of them capable of many years of good work, would suddenly be thrown upon it. The demands thus made upon the fund .may conceivably strain its resources to a degree which will make it necessary, if possible, to secure a larger subsidy from the Government if its collapse is to be prevented. "Whether the additional assistance would, or could, be given, would be for the Government of the day to decide. This is a point which the younger mem- ! bers of the service who are calling for the compulsory retirement of all officers after forty years' service might well bear in mind. With full appreciation of the urgent need for economical administration by the Government, and believing that the Public Service is overmanned and requires the pruning knife, we repeat that the retrenchment of capable officers on superannuation ia only justified if it effects a genuine saving in expenditure and does not lessen the efficiency of the service, and further, if the same process of retrenchment is applied impartially to all Department.