PUBLIC SERVICE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19769, 6 November 1929, Page 15

PUBLIC SERVICE.

COMPARISON OF COSTS. COMMISSIONER'S ANNUAL REVIEW. [THE FBESS Special Service. 1 WELLINGTON, November 5. The cost of the Public Service has increased by 65 per cent, in the last decade and a half, according to a statement in the annual report of tho Public Service Commissioner presented to Parliament to-day. After tracing the expansion of the Service from the staff point of view, the Commissioner (Mr P. Verschaffelt) states that a table had been compiled showing the distribution of the net expenditure from the Consolidated Fund to the various purposes for which the taxpayer was burdened. The net expenditure in 1914 was £5,705.249, in 1921 £ 15,971,7-5, and in 1929 £18.420.066. The rate per head of population adjusted to a comparable basis was £7 12s, £l2 15s Id. and £l2 12s 4d in the respective periods. Discussing the expenditure increase of approximately C 5 per cent., Mr Verschaffelt' says: "The increase in debt charges and pensions, which are largely a legacy from the late war. accounts for nearly three-quarters of this expansion. In regard to public expenditure, which may be attributed to the cost of administration and the giving effect to the Government policy, the greatest increase has been in connexion with the extension of social services, the cost of which has increased from £2.123,815 in 1914 to £6.292.930 in 1929. The cost of administration has not increased to anything like the same extent as the expenditure under the other headings in the fifteen vears. It has risen from £882.069 in 1913 to £1.287.917 for the last financial year, while on the adjusted figures it will be noted that actually there lias been a decrease in the cost per capita, the charge for general administration per capita being £1 3s »kl in 1913-14, and 17s Sd in 1928-29. G.neral administration costs have not increasci] in proportion to the expansion of the total burden, for in 1913-14 the expenditure undct this head represented !•>} per ' en -- ' Jt the total expenditure from the Consolidated Fund, whereas in 1928-29 general administration expenses amounted to only 7J per cent, of the total charges. These figures bear evidence of the care and economy exercised in matters pertaining to general administration, and in any criticism of the growing burden on th<2 Consolidated Fund it should be borne in mind that this is directly re.ated to the ever-growing demand for increased Governmental services, and that any

curtailment is a matter of general policy rather than a question of 'tightening up the slack' in the general administration of the Public Service. _ "A comparative statement of the salaries and personnel of the Public Service shows that during the last decade the increase in the permanent staff has been 1428, while the increase in salaries has been £808,251. Considering the expansion of public business in recent years, tho growth in staff in the Public Service proper has been kept down to a much closer degree than is generally realised. There has undoubtedly been a considerable growth in public expenditure when such term includes expenditure by local authorities, but the inclusion of such figures in a criticism of the cost of the administration of the Public Service rather confuses the issue, as the control of such expenditure does not rest with Ministers in charge _ of Departments and other State officials who are responsible for the economical administration of the Public Service. The extent of the expansion or activities bv local authorities may bo gauged from the fact that in 1910 tho amount paid in salaries and wages to employees of local authorities was £2,17*2,663. and in 1928 it had grown to £6,176,856. The amount paid in salaries to officers subject to the provisions of the Public Service Act was £1,431,720 in 1919, and £1,239,971 in 1929 a considerably lower ratio of increase in recent years. The complexitv of modern life has created a •whole"new range of civic and national problems, chiefly in connexion with health, education, and social amenities, and any criticism of review of the cost of public administration must take these considerations into account."