The Press THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1964. Retirement Of Public Servant

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 16

The Press THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1964. Retirement Of Public Servant

The Public Service Association claims that it has *• indisputable evidence ” that the Government brought pressure on the State Services Commission to secure the retirement of a departmental head who was “ politically unacceptable ”. Unless this evidence is produced, the categorical denials of the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) and the chairman of the commission (Mr L. A. Atkinson) are to be preferred to the statement by the president of the association (Mr G. H. Sorrell) if for one reason only: what method of exerting pressure is available to the Government? The commission is in much the same independent position as the Auditor-General; and it will be remembered that as recently as 1958 the then Auditor-General refused to submit to the then Government. There is no reason to suppose that the State Services Commission would be weaker.

That is not to say, of course, that the views of any Government about the appointment or retirement of senior officers such as departmental heads should not be considered. Plainly the ability or willingness of a departmental head to work with his Minister or the Government of the day is an important consideration, just as his ability to direct his staff efficiently or to retain the confidence of the public with which he deals is important. It is the responsibility of the commission alone, not of the Government or of the Public Service Association, to decide what weight should be given to all or any of these factors and to others.

In the case about which the association protests so violently, the public servant is not being dismissed. He has, in the association’s delicate phrase, “ served “ a certain number of years ” (40 years in fact) and now has the right to elect to retire on a generous pension and then take another well-paid job. It is not surprising that the commission has the corresponding right to ask him to retire if it thinks, for reasons that seem to it sufficient, that his position would be better filled by someone else. Leaving aside all question of who the particular departmental head may be and of how sound the commission’s judgment may be, it would be intolerable if the commission did not have at least this room for judgment in its efforts to maintain the efficiency of the service. In many ways its powers are strictly limited in particular cases by general provisions designed to protect the rights of all the many thousands of State employees. Incidentally, all the staff associations that appeared before the 1961-62 Royal Commission on State Services favoured automatic retirement to protect promotion prospects; they were “wedded to the “‘ 40 year rule ’”. Why is the Public Service Association making an exception in this instance? The answers suggested by Mr Sorrell are that the commission has no valid reason for seeking the officer’s retirement, that it would, left to itself, not have done so, and that it has been forced by the Government to make a decision with which it disagreed. These are grave charges against the probity of Mr Atkinson and the other commissioners. In fairness to them and to the public servant concerned (who is obviously a man of some standing) the association should provide the evidence—if it can.