The Public Service.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20039, 22 September 1930, Page 10

The Public Service.

The annual report of the Public Service Commissioner, laid before Parliament towards the end of last week, 'begins by enumerating the "manifold "problems" to which attention has been given throughout the year. They are met with in administering the Public Service Act "in regard to the " staffing of the various Departments, "the dealing with appeals against "promotions, the prosecuting of enquiries in regard to retirements and "the filling of vacancies, the taking of " disciplinary action where necessary, " [and] the conducting of investigations into irregularities"; and these are cares so heavy that to give at the same time " constant' thought to mat"ters associated with the organisation " of Departments with a view to im- " proved efficiency arjd greater economy" would be a strenuous exercise, if the Departments were not already, in the Commissioner's view, almost perfectly efficient and economical. He holds that " over-staffing " and "financial prodigality" are "en"tirely unwarranted charges to level "at the administration, for, as was "stated in last year's report, there is "a plain reason for the presence of "every person employed, and any cur- " tailment is not a matter of organisa- " tion but of Government policy." Thinking as he does, he cannot be very far from thinking also that the " particular attention which has been "given to the question of curtailment " of Departmental expenditure " was wasted. Certainly, for attention so particular and so great an expenditure of time, the results shown in the Budget were insignificantly small; but to start looking for savings in the belief that there are none to be found is like looking with both eyes shut. It is impossible to agree with the report, or even to excuse the tone of resolute advocacy and defence, in which blunt assertions that the Public Service has nothing to learn from private enterprise are coolly backed up by quotations which apply to the Public Service somewhere else or describe what an efficient State Department ought to be. There is no question, of course, that as political Parties bid for public support with promises of fresh or wider social services and then redeem their promises, the number of State employees must tend to rise and the cost of State activity with it. So far as this explains the size of the army of public servants and the mountain of its cost, the public is itself responsible, in the end, although the politicians are the more directly culpable; but it is not the complete explanation. It is not true that then is " a plain reason * for the presence of every person, em-

"ployed," if "a plain reason" is the only right one—that every man earns his pay, at vrork that must be done. Nor is it true that "any curtailment "is not a matter of organisation, but "of Government policy." The Departments are not yet the marvels of efficiency that they would have to be to make it true. Not one of them is such a marvel, or nearly; and this applies to those branches of administration with which the Commissioner is concerned no less than to those with which he is not. When the taxpayer complains cf over-staffing and of other extravagances in the Public Service, he is not thinking exclusively of the section under Commissioner control, though he does not exempt it, and is justified in not exempting it. He is thinking of the immense field of public activity, of its excessive cost, and of the superfluity of employees. The Commissioner therefore answers the complaint too narrowly; but even on the narrow front the defence cannot 3tand. Even if all the business of all the Departments were necessary to l)e done, which it is not, it would still be impossible to say that it is being done efficiently or economically.