RED-TAPE METHODS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 10

RED-TAPE METHODS

REGULATION COMPLEX

As one outside the service, stated a professional man today, he could not see. that good would be achieved by the introduction of efficiency tests in the Public Service.

He said he thought that it might be claimed Avith confidence that for some years now the trend had been aAvay from red-tape methods and that this had been responsible for the emergence and appearance of men in the State Departments not suffering from a regulation-mind and Avith whom it was more pleasant to deal. Surely it was better to allow members of the service to display some initiative and enjoy some freedom to exercise the real ability they possessed rather than that they should feel that they were hedged in by an examination and regulation complex.

Admittedly some qualifications were necessary, as also were regulations, but they could be carried too far and in his opinion did not make for the efficiency that Avas the Commissioner's aim. There were surely enough regulations in the service now. No one wanted to see developed in this country a race of public servants who said that this could not be done because of regulation so and so, and that that could not be done because there Avas no regulation covering it. He questioned AA'hether the examination of men who had passed their early twenties would be a true guide to their efficiency. It was claimed by some educationists that when men passed the age of 25 or 26, the question Avhether they were efficient or not could be determined more accurately by an inspection of their general work over a period than by asking them to_ sit for a Avritten examination.