HARBOUR BOARD WAGES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22501, 8 September 1938, Page 16

HARBOUR BOARD WAGES

* .1? % Alleged Leakage Of Information COMMITTEE REPORTS DIVULGED ? * A suggestion that there had been a leakage of information outside the board about committee proposals bn staff salaries provoked a long discussion at yesterday’s meeting of the Lyttelton Harbour Board. The chairman, Mr R. T. McMillan, asked members whether in view of the suggestion that secret information had leaked out they desired a ruling on the desirability of keeping in the future to the old custom of sending committee reports out to board members in advance. Without passing any resolution the board decided to adhere to the old custom of keeping members posted in advance of the contents of committee reports. A resolution by Mr J. K. McAlpine that reports of committees on staff salaries be not sent out but, instead, laid on the table on meeting days, was withdrawn. Members, generally, considered that the system which had been used for years should be maintained for the present. The ventilation of the complaint that information had leaked out would probably stop any future leakages, it was suggested. A feature of the discussion was a statement by Mr R. M. Macfarlane that such leakages, especially where they concerned staff wages, were not confined to the Harbour Board. His experience of local bodies, he said, was that such committee business frequently leaked out. Mr R. E. Cairns, after being assured by Mr McMillan that the ruling was sought because of the suggestion that committee business was being divulged, said that it was entirely wrong for any member to let such information out. At the same time he thought that the custom of sending reports out before the meeting was extremely valuable because it gave members a chance to think out proposals. Mr W. J. Walter agreed with Mr Cairns’s estimate of the value of seeing reports in advance, and Mr Macfarlane expressed the view that, now the matter had been ventilated, no further action should be taken. Other members said that other local bodies always sent out committee reports in advance, and the system worked so satisfactorily that it would be unwise to change it. To test the feeling of the meeting, • Mr McAlpine then moved his resolution, which would stop the practice of sending reports out in advance, and this was formally seconded. It was most regrettable, said Mr McAlpine, that there should have been any leakage of confidential information, Mr Cairns expressed the view that the resolution, if carried, would be in the nature of a reflection on members. It was possible that the Information had crept out quite unintentionally: • Other members said that to pass Mr McAlpine’s resolution would mean altering the board’s by-laws, and that a recurrence "of the leakage would be prevented by the mere fact of the long discussion that had taken place. i Mr McAlpine then agreed to withdrawn his motion and the discussion lapsed. '