CHANGE IN CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1939, Page 11

CHANGE IN CONTROL

PENSIONS TRANSFER

MINISTER'S TRIBUTE TO

THE STAFF

. Today the Ministerial administration of the Pensions Department passes from the Hon. W. E: Parry to the Hon. W. Nash, Minister of Social Security. The change results from the bringing into effect of the Social Security legislation embodying the State social services in the administration of one Department. Paying a tribute today' to the Commissioner of Pensions, Mr. H. Digby Smith, and to the staff of the Pensions Department, which from tomorrow automatically becomes merged with , the Social Security Department, Mr: Parry, who has been Minister of Pensions since the coming into office of the Labour Goverment in 1935, said he had but one regret in the change that was taking place—the losing of the direct official contact he had enjoyed with a staff of State officers who had rendered him loyal and valuable assistance in the work done for the public of the Dominion. The various amendments for which the Government, in its desire to improve the social advantages and benefits of the people, had obtained the sanction of Parliament to make in the pensions legislation, imposed on the officers a vast amount of additional work. That work had been performed by the men and women of the Department with a remarkable celerity and accuracy which could be gauged only by those having an intimate connection with the affairs of the Department. .-—"The spirit of Parliament's amending pensions legislation seemed to be inculcated in the officers," Mr. Parry said, "and any "amount of extra work thrust upon them,did not in any way cause a slackening\)f heartening effort/ to meet it. The public rightly expects of State servants that they shall/be attentive in the discharge -of-^their duties. It has been my happy experience as a member of the Government not to have encountered complaints of dereliction, or disregard, of duty, against the staff of the Pensions Department, but I have had many letters from the public eulogising the work and general helpfulness of officers. These messages were very gratifying to me as the Ministerial head of the Department for the last three years. I feel that, in the wider sphere of activity which the Social Security Department offers, the public will find predominating among members of the staff the same excellent spirit which characterised their work in the past."