PUBLIC SERVICE STAFF

Southland Times, Issue 24524, 27 August 1941, Page 6

PUBLIC SERVICE STAFF

NEW RECRUITMENT POLICY

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 26. A new policy of recruitment of staff for the Public Service and of postrecruitment training is to be announced shortly, according to a statement by Mr S. T. Barnett, superintendent of staff training in the office of the Public Service Commissioner, in an address on “Employment in the Public Service” at the conference of the New Zealand Vocational Association today. Mr Barnett said a plan had been under consideration by a committee for some time and would be the most progressive and liberal policy the Public Service had ever entertained both for the-recruit-ment of the junior staff and its subsequent training. Mr Barnett said the plan embodied great advances on anything the service had had before. Among other things women would not be able to quarrel with the plans for careers for them. It was sometimes said that the Public Service sought to obtain undue privileges from the secondary schools. It was not seeking to obtain special privileges, but was trying to bring about better service to the community. The service should not be allowed to go without a good percentage of the best brains of the country. Its biggest lack today was of first-class executives between the ages of 30 and 40.

“We lo offer among the biggest jobs in the country in finance, administration, organization, engineering and science,” Mr Barnett said. “One is entitled to say that there will be bigger jobs in the future—something to challenge the imagination of young people.” The Public Service had greater scope for real brains than many organizations which got much kinder assistance from those concerned in the placing of boys, he said. The service had greater consideration for its boys than those organizations. It sought deliberately for the best boys in its employ and offered them every facility for advancing their education. “We are firm believers in the value of vocational guidance and careers advisers,” Mr Barnett said. “We want your help and co-operation. The Public Service does not stand in the high esteem of this community as it does in some of the great nations. In England and America the Public Service is a much sought-after occupation subject to high examinations. The salaries they pay are no better in relation to outside business than in the Public Service in New Zealand,”