' Salaries Lag Behind'

Northern Advocate, 5 August 1949, Page 5

' Salaries Lag Behind'

WELLINGTON, Fri. (P.Aj.—“Government is an important business in New Zealand and salaries should be such as to attract and hold able administrators.

“Increases to a figure of £2500 per annum would be fully warranted, having regard to outside incomes,” says the annual report of the Public Service Commission tabled in the House of Representatives today.

The report says New Zealand is lagging behind in recognising the need to pay adequate salaries to those who take major responsibilities in the Government of the country. Cabinet Ministers receive only £ll7O oer annum, plus a house or house allowance. Their predecessors in 1863 were paid £1250. MINISTERS’ CUTS Ministers, as far as the commission is aware, are the only persons paid by the state who have not even had -'■t >red to them the statutory reductions made in*l93l. The report says heads of departments (or departmental general managers) receive salaries ranging from £1225 for the smallest, departments to £2025 for the Secretary to the Treasury. The commission is aware of much higher salaries being paid to business heads in private enterprise, and in state organisations. For instance, the chairman of the new Licensing Commission is paid £2250 and tv/o members of the commission £1750, but the Director of Education only £1625, and the secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research only £1475. The salary of the Governor of the Reserve Bank is £3030, compared with £2025 for the Secretary to the Treasury. HARMFUL IN LONG RUN “Distinctions of this kind are not compatible with payment for responsibility, and must in the long run be harmful to public administration in New Zealand/’ the report says. "In many cases the responsibilities of executives in private and stateowned organisations are not as great as those of many permanent heads.” The commission quotes examples of increases in salaries for senior public servants in other countries, and points out that the commission itself has no power to deal with salaries in New Zealand over £1025.