CITY MANAGER

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 22

CITY MANAGER

RATEPAYERS' PROPOSAL

The Wellington Ratepayers' Association has revived the proposal that a city manager should be appointed to unify control of the municipal departments and activities, and the following letter has been addressed to the City Council through the Town Clerk:-—

"At an executive meeting of the Wellington Ratepayers' Association held last week, the question of the appointment of a city manager was again discussed. It was considered that the present system of each department being responsible to their individual committees was uneconomic and wrong in principle, in that there was no supreme or unified control dealing with the ac.tual work being done. Under the present system the council itself assumes direct responsibility for detailed execution.

"From the ratepayers' standpoint the association is of the opinion that a city manager with full administrative powers should be appointed to assume this responsibility, he alone reporting direct to the council and carrying out in detail the policy decided upon by the full council. The principle enunciated here is not new; it is in operation in all large business organisations where the utmost efficiency is imperative and also is the organisation adopted over many years by the three largest Government Departments, namely, the Public Works Department, the Post and Telegraph Department, and the Railway Department."

The Wellington Ratepayers' Association is of the opinion that citizens who render their services as councillors should be free to deal with all matters of policy and finance and should not be called upon to take part in the management of the various working departments.