THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1977. ‘They,’ who watch over ‘them’

Press, 17 August 1977, Page 16

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1977. ‘They,’ who watch over ‘them’

By far the largest industry in New Zealand is government and the running of departments of State that serve the needs of New Zealanders. Nearly a quarter of a million people are employed by the Government and a large part of the country's wealth goes towards paying for the jobs they do. About a quarter of the State's employees work for what is called the Public Service: the rest of the workers in Government employ are engaged in the health, education, and Post Office services, and others which have their own controlling authorities. The departments within the Public Service are under the supervision of the State Services Commission.

Today, on this page, our Wellington correspondent begins a series of articles on the work of the commission—an arm of government of which little is generally heard except when industrial disputes are noticed. Even then, the final decision often requires a Government decision. Yet the State Services Commission remains a vital part of public administration and it is at all times responsible for the efficiency of the Public Service.

Public opinion on the service given by the State and its employees is always mixed. At one moment public servants, paid by the taxpayer, are too numerous; at another, “they” are not doing the jobs that are expected of “them”. The price of State action is nearly always too high; the free services of the State are always too meagre. Public servants, in the view of most people, should be independently minded and should not feel that their jobs are

being threatened; others feel that security in the job, removed from the threat of outsiders, breeds apathy and indifference to efficiency and sympathy towards the public’s needs. The very people who are most enthusiastic about extensive public control of what today are private enterprise industries are often the people who are most concerned about the intrusion of the State on private lives, interests, property, initiative, and reward for work. Many who talk of “open government" and of the desirable freedom of public servants to reveal information at will seem to overlook the political responsibility for Public Service information and opinion in the making of decisions. Probably few public servants who want to express or assert their opinions, or convictions, on a particular issue would offer their resignations if they were proved in due course to be mistaken. The question of confidentiality and freedom of information from Public Service sources in relation to public responsibility have not been touched upon in the public debate about “open government”.

To inform readers more thoroughly about the nature and intricacies of the Public Service the article's by our reporter in Wellington set out to describe the many facets of public administration that are under the control of the State Services Commission: pay, promotion, efficiency, changes in management, selection of new entrants, morale, and industrial relations. These are all matters that must be taken into account when the “man in the street” says: “They should do something about it.”