PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 64, 12 September 1912, Page 2

PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In the interests of the great bulk of the Public Service, whioh it might to as well to point out is not represented by tho Civil Servico Association, I wish to protest against the recommendation made by to-day's deputation to the Minister of Justice that the salaries l« be paid to tho Assistant Commissioners undet Mr. Herdman's Publio Service Bill be raised 1 to £1000, "so as to attract the best .talent in the Service." While to those not conversant with the inner working of the Service it might appear that the argument in favour of the higher salary is a fair one, it is quite apparent to thoso who know the "full strength" of the position that such an increase in the salaries mentioned will Bimply mean that the selection of Assistant Commissioners, if made from the Government Service, must necessarily be restricted to a comparatively small oircle of the older and more highly .paid heads of Departments, who by tho very fact of their long occupancy of their present positions are completely out of touoh with the detail work of the Service and of the general organisation, even of the Departments they themselves administer. Tho whole intention of the Bill appears to be that the Commissioner shall bo supreme, the Assistant Commissioners being in reality his chief executive officers It follows, therefore, that tho two assistants should be men who are thoroughly in touch with detail work, or who have not been so long dissociated from tho general work of a Department that they have forgotten the main essentials that govern tho whole work of successful administration. The first Assistant Commissioners appointed, if the Bill is placed on the Statute Book, must necessarily be keen investigators, who have a first-hand knowledge of their work, and they must also be men in their full strength and vigour. If tho Commissioner is assisted by two such men, who will be capable of doing much of tho "spade work" themselves, instead of deputing it to others, ho will have every chance of obtaining a full knowledge of tho ramifications of the Service within a reasonable time, but if he is dependent upon two of the men to whom the choice would probably be restricted if the salary were raised, considerable delay is likely to take place, and the cost of the scheme be largely increased by the employment of special tnon to do the work that could readily be dona by two "active 41 assistants. In tho Service generally it is considered that the salaries proposed in the Bill aro sufficiently liberal to enable the Government to have a wide range of choice from among those best fitted to carry out the work of Assistant Commissioners, and the suggestion that the salaries should be raised, and the choice thereby restricted, is generally doprecated. " The Bill meetß with the approval of the majority of the Civil servants in Wellington, and they do not wish to see the scheme crippled at its inception by the undue building up of the cost of administration. — I am, etc, LONG SIGHT. Wellington, 10th September, 1912.