CIVIC MANAGEMENT.

Southland Times, Issue 19295, 5 August 1921, Page 4

CIVIC MANAGEMENT.

From the outset the Town Council has displayed a lack of firmness in its treatment of proposals aiming at improvements in the management of the town’s affairs. Before the poll all the candidates insisted on the urgent need for some radical changes, but when Councillor Glass introduced the question to the. newly elected council in the form of a proposal to set up a special committee to devise some scheme to secure co-ordination, he was met by the suggestion that it was not necessary, that the Mayor and Councillor Mackrell had these matters in hand. After Councillor Glass had been disposed of, there came down a motion for the appointment of a committee to centralise the purchase of stores. We were told that this would effect considerable savings. The motion, in fact, regularised what the Mayor and Councillor Mackrell had been inquiring into, but since that time nothing has been heard of the results of this important departure. In the meantime Councillor Miller drew the council’s attention to a Launceston scheme for a modified Town Manager and this was no? given a very friendly reception, but it reappeared before the council at its last mee?ing in the report of the Finance Committee and was adopted. Now Councillor Mackrell is seeking to recommit the proposal and to ask the entire council to draft the schedule of duties for the Town Clerk. Councilor Mackrell’s motion is positive proof of the blunder committed by the council in the first place in not appointing a special, committee to consider the whole problem of municipal management and to devise a .scheme to bring about the reorganisation

that is necessary. The heads of the various departments should be consulted and their opinions should be considered carefully by the investigating committee, and the advice of business men outside of the ranks of the councillors could be obtained with advantage. The Finance Committee could not carry out this duty properly along with its other responsibilities and we are afraid that Councillor Mackrell was not saying too much when he declared that the members of the council had voted on the new schedule of duties for the Town Clerk without fully understanding the position. A successful organisation of the corporation’s administration, a co-ordination of its departmental operations cannot be effected by the simple process of writing rules on a piece of paper. There are many aspects of the question, quite outside of the mere principle of the scheme, requiring earnest consideration before a hesitant form af managership is imposed on the Town Clerk. The council has hurried too much in dealing with this matter. We objected at the outset to its waste of time in not going properly to work to obtain a complete understanding of the w’hole problem; we object now to the waste of time in the adoption of proposals that are not. fully appreciated by those who voted for them. It is to be hoped that the council will take Councillor Mackrell’s advice and re commit <he whole question.