‘No Pressure’ For Salaries

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30447, 22 May 1964, Page 16

‘No Pressure’ For Salaries

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 20. The advisory committee on higher salaries had not been subjected to political pressure, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said in a statement today. Mr Holyoake said the president of the Public Service Association (Mr E. J. Batt) by innuendo and implication had suggested among other things, that the committee had been subjected to political pressure and had produced a report recommending an inequitable scale of increases. “The characteristically unjustified and unsupported outburst was as objectionable as it was vague,” said Mr Holyoake. , Mr Holyoake said he wanted to state categorically that: There had been no political pressure on the committee. There was no political influence in the appointments to top Public Service posts under . the higher appointments provisions of the State Services Act.

Mr Batt’s Suggestion that the increases given to present holders of top posts had been governed by the favour in which they were held by some authority which he was careful not to name as an insult to the committee which was required to recommend increases for positions without regard to who was holding them at the time. “Would Mr Batt care to come out from behind his screen of -insinuations and challenge any of these facts?” asked Mr Holyoake. “The appointment of the committee was the result of a recommendation by the Royal Commission on the State Services which proposed that “the members should be of high status and should collectively have a wide knowledge of senior posts in outside employment.’

“It follows a precedent pursued in Britain since the establishment in 1957 of the Coleraine committee, which was set up to make similar recommendations to the British Government. “The Government considers itself fortunate to have had the services of men with the integrity, responsibility, and experience of the committee members,” said Mr Holyoake.

“Anyone who knows them will resent Mr Batt's inference that their recommendations were influenced by political interest. “Mr Batt suggests that there was no genuine survey of outside remuneration because the details of salaries in private industry on which the recom mendations were based are not included in their report. Confidential “The committee says In its report that this information was obtained, but on a confidential basis, and therefore could not be included in a published report. “Mr Batt seems to feel that there is something sacrosanct about the previous relationships between the salaries for the various top posts,” said Mr Holyoake. “These relationships are not static—they have been changed in the past and will be changed again in the future.

“His suggestion that each increase should have been the same percentage of the previous salary for the position, is therefore out of touch with reality. “His statement that ‘some get increases as much as 25 per cent on their previous

salary, others as little as 7j per cent’ is also misleading. “The increases range from just under 17 per cent to just over 25 per cent. “One of the present permanent heads has been receiving a personal grading, however, and his net increase represented by the new salary for the post is up I per cent,” said the Prime Minister. “Mr Batt does not seem to have realised that the salaries recommended apply to positions, not to individual officers.

“The committee was faced with a most complex task, and it has produced an excellent report. “A valid comparison has now been made between the remuneration for top government posts and for posts of similar responsibility in outside employment. “The committee was fully entitled to refer to margins between the recommended salaries and those at lower levels of the state services, and the need to preserve adequate margins for skill and responsibility. “Mr Batt's outburst is out of keeping with the reactions of many of the public servants he is supposed to be representing,” said Mr Holyoake.