CIVIL SERVICE PAY

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26199, 24 August 1950, Page 3

CIVIL SERVICE PAY

INCREASES COMPARED PERMANENT HEADS AND LOWER GRADES (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 23. Pay increases to top civil servants had not been passed on to lower-paid officers, said Mr F. D. Winter, assistant general secretary of the New Zealand Public Service Association, to the Government Service Tribunal to-day. Higher salaries over which the Government retained control had always been considered relevant in discussions on service salaries generally, he said. The average salary of 33 permanent heads of Government departments on April 1, 1946, was £1,366.66, said Mr Winter. Between then and April 1, 1950, the average increase was £243.19, and the average increase in the maximum salary for these positions over the same period was £370.46. The average increase in the salaries of 90 Class 1 maximum servants between April 1, 1946, and April 1, 1950, was £74.6. This included general increases totalling £6O, so that the net increase as a result of up-grading was only £14.6.

Public Service Commission reports for several years had suggested that an. important reason why not enough young people were joining the service was the low birthrate during the depression. However, statistics for 1938 to 1949 showed a clear increase in the numbers of boys from which the service drew its recruits, but a decrease in the number of recruits.

Mr Winter said that the practice of the Arbitration Court was to fix rates for local bodies’ labourers and tradesmen at a figure higher than award rates for similar workers. The effective rate for labourers who had been with the same employer *or two years or more was over 2d an hour more than the rate for Public Service labourers.