‘Little choice’ on sacked tea lady

Press, 10 February 1982, Page 2

‘Little choice’ on sacked tea lady

Parliamentary reporter

The Prime Minister’s Department had little choice other than to discharge its tea-lady. Mrs Mildred Cottam. said the head of the Prime Minister’s Department, Mr G. G. Hensley, yesterday. Mrs Cottam was given two months notice on Friday after a cost-cutting exercise in the Department to meet targets of 3 per cent savings in spending in the coming financial year.

The Public Service Association and Labour members of Parliament have

attacked the decision, calling it inhumane, and the beginning of convenient sackings of tea-ladies through the public service. Mr P. Neilson (Lab., Miramar) said that cuts should have been made where inefficiencies existed — in supplementary minimum prices for agricultural products, and import incentives. Mr Hensley said that the Prime Minister's Department had made cuts amounting to 545.W1J0 in other services in attempts to reach the $50,000 savings target constituting the three per

cent reduction. It is thought that the termination of Mrs Cottam's employment will save about $5OOO. Mrs Cottam had worked as tea-lady since May, 1980, on a part-time basis, doing a five hour day,every day. “There were no other ways of saving the money,” Mr Hensley said. The Department’s budget this year was $1.5 million. Of this $1.25 million comprised salaries. About half the Department’s staff numbers were in the External Intelligence Bureau, a unit advising the Prime Minister on overseas

developments affecting New Zealand’s interests. Staffing cuts could not easily be made there. “When you are told by the Government that you have to meet the > three per cent target, you have to meet it, and it’s difficult,” Mr Hensley said: The Department had no significant running expenses apart from salaries. “It has got to be a bit of a shock to Mrs Cottam, but she has said 4hat she realises part-time positions are more vulnerable,” Mr Hensley said. After Mrs Cottam was

given her notice of dismissal, which would take effect in the new financial year, the State Services Commission was immediately asked to help her find employment in a job to her liking elsewhere in the public sector, and failing that in the private sector, he said. , “We do not want her to be unemployed,” Mr Hensley said. “We are trying with our best efforts to relocate her.” An “extra bit of roster work” in the Prime Minister’s Department would solve the problem of 50 cups of tea several times a dav.