MUCH TO DO

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 111, 11 May 1923, Page 6

MUCH TO DO

The City Council has now been installed, and is about to commence work. The Mayor has rightly drawn the attention of councillors at the outset to the number and variety of the tasks that await them. If the tasks are to be performed, the Council will require to work methodically, and not talk at random. Hitherto it cannot be said that City Councils in their ways of doing things have set a good example to Corporation staffs. Hard-and-fast rules of procedure will not mend matters. It will not be enough to say that the engineers shall attend to this and the committees to that; that the committees shall act in this repect without reference to the Counoil, -.but shall not go beyond that point. Satisfactory working calls for some elasticity in the powers of officers, committees, and Council; and such elasticity is quite in keeping with v efficiency if councillors use their powers wisely and do not question decisions .merely for something to say. Unfortunately the Council, like Parliament, has been apt to waste hours talking about trifles and then to allow important issues to pass almost without examination. If a different method is adopted, it will be the beginning of reorganisation, and a start made at the right end. There is another aspect of reorganisation that calls for attention. During the election campaign it was freely stated that some officers were overworked, and that settlement of important questions was delayed in consequence. Un-der-staffing which leads to inefficiency is most unwise. The Council, acting through a small committee, may well make this question of staffing one of the first inquired into. Settlement of it will facilitate the handling of all other important issues.