PUBLIC SERVICE CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21858, 11 August 1936, Page 10

PUBLIC SERVICE CONTROL

♦ TWO COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED

POSITION VACANT SINCE

LAST YEAR

LONG DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE

RECOGNISED

[From Our Parliamentary ReporterJ

WELLINGTON, August 10.

The appointment of two joint Public Service Commissioners was announced this evening by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage. They are Mr Thomas Mark. Deputy-Public Service Commissioner.

Mr John H. Boyes, Commissioner of Pensions.

The appointments, which will date from Saturday, August 15 and which are for a term of three years, have been approved by the GovernorGeneral, Viscount Galway. There has been no permanent occupant of the office of Public Service Commissioner since the resignation last year of Mr P. D. N. Verschaffelt. Since that time Mr A. D. Thompson has been acting commissioner, with Mr Mark as assistant The decision to appoint two commissioners has been made in accordance with the terms of the Finance Act which was passed by the House of Representatives recently and which created the dual office.

When the relevant section of the bill was under discussion in the House it was stated on behalf of the Government that because of the amount of work to be handled in the near future the appointment of two commissioners with equal power was absolutely necessary.

MR T. MARK

Mr Mark comes to the new position with valuable experience gained in association in three important branches, the Post and Telegraph Department, the Railways Department, and the administrative section of the public service itself. He was bom 49 years ago in Waitahuna, and educated at the Lawrence District High School. In March, 1906. . having passed the public service entrance examination he was appointed .a cadet in the Post and Telegraph Department at Auckland, being one of the few who at that time gained entry to the department with cadetship. In July, 1908, he was transferred to the staff division of the secretary’s office of the Post and Telegraph Department at Wellington. where he remained until May, 1913, when he was transferred to the Public Service Commissioner’s office. He has remained in that office ever since, being successively clerk, registrar, chief clerk, and secretary’. He was appointed to the last position in March, 1930.

For the last two years Mr Mark has “been acting-assistant commissioner and for the last two months deputy-commissioner. During the last six years he has represented the commissioner before the Public Service Board of Appeal. In 1926 he was a member of the committee of three which was responsible for the regrading of the first division of the Railways Department, and he was also a member of the committee appointed by the previous Government to investigate national health insurance and pensions. Outside his office Mr Mark’s principal, interests have lain in friendly society activities. He is a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters and has held in that lodge the high position of Wellington District Chief Ranger. MR J. H. BOTES The whole of Mr Boyes’s career In the public service has been with the Pensions Department, and in the 33 years he has spent in the service he has been transferred from one district to another only once, this being from Auckland to Wellington. Born in Auckland in 1886, he was educated at Prince Albert College and entered the public service in 1903 with a cadetship in the Pensions Department. During the 16 years that followed Mr Boyes rose in the Auckland office of the department from cadet to registrar. In July, 1919, he was transferred to Wellington and was appointed AssistantCommissioner of Pensions, and in the same month 10 years later he became Commissioner of Pensions, an office he has held up to the present. Among Mr Boyes’s hobbies are fishing and gardening. Much of his spare time is spent at his holiday bach in the Akatarawa valley. In his younger days in Auckland he played Rugby football, being a member of the College Old Boys’ Club.