The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1920. THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Timaru Herald, Issue 170307, 1 September 1920, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1920. THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

A general suspicion that thePublic Service tends, to grow muck faster than, there is need tor it to do is supported bv the | Commissioner's latest report. Ihe document points out that, enameling the purely commercial and trading departments, to i wnich ordinary commercial tests J can be applied, the personnel of ! the Service increased between ; April 1014 and April 1019 from 4577 to 5433 officers, and its pay sheet from £874,613 to £I,2U, Udß. The advance in numbers amounted to 18.02 per cent, and m salaries to 45.30 per cent. It is surely strange that so man v additional officers should have been required to cany' out the country's business . in a period when there has certainly been no proportionate increase of population. Tiie Commissioner states that recent legislation and the reconstruction programme have necessitated a considerable expansion of staff, but he adds that '"in addition there seems io.h-3 a tendency on the part of some Departments to endeavour to expand their operations and staffs, the reasons for which are not so apparent" In another paragraph, the explainable increases are set forth in some detail. The Industries and Commerce Department is new, and accountants and other new officers have had to be appointed in connection with the anti-profiteering policy. The Immigration Departmeni must increase, the housing- effort has required new appointments, Public Health activities are being extended, the Forestry Department is a new one which is likely to expand- rapidly. All that can be understood, but' the public would like to know why some of the other Departments have to go on adding to their staffs. The comparison that has been quoted does not include the figures for the .Post and Telegraph Department. Hallways, and school teachers, the last omission being least important because it is certain that more teachers, ij'nd not ■ fewer, are needed. A comparison which includes the trading- departments, but not the Post Office and Hallways, shows that growth was still the genera J tendency up till March fins year, and gives particulars of the increases and decreases as compared with the preceding twelvemonth. One o'f the largest expansions is shown by the Public Trust Office, whose staff has increased in a single year from 445 to 559, but that increase • may ba justified by the opening of new agencies and increasing business. An increase of 100, in the staff of the Lands and Survey Department, will be welcome to the extent that it stands for more surveyors. One hundred and two new officers seems a large addition to thfe Internal Affairs Department, and it appears inexplicable that, when all our soldiers had returned home, the Defence Department should have required tiie same staff—7B officers—in March last as it did a year before.

Altogether, in the Departments dealt with, there were (3734 officers last March as compared with 6225 in the previous year. A first impression would be that too many positions in the Service are given to cadets whom the country can ill spare from productive industries, but the Commissioner reports that boys are hard to ob-' taiu. The supply of those who had passed the Public Service Examination was short last year, owing perhaps, he suggests, to the increasing popularity of the medical, legal, and teaching professions, and the fact that the age of leaving" schools appears to be gradually becoming higher than before the war. The average salary for all departments, which advanced from £192 in 1914 to £231) in 1919, does not sug-gest that Civil Servants are too highly remunerated, but the constant tendency of salaries, and of all other expenses, to increase, requires that a close watch should be kept upon expansion. It is hard to realise how large the Public Service is. The Post and Telegraph Department, not included in the Commissioner's figures, had a total classified staff last year of 8404, the Railway Department makes another great addition, and the figures Ave have quoted from the Commissioner's report do not include the administrative division. So far' as the Departments of which he has the supervision are concerned the Commissioner suggests that, if they are to be kept within reasonable bounds, a more comprehensive method than exists at present of controlling the expansion of their operations and staffs should be formulated. The Commissioner makes other suggestions for economy, notably that of a central, scheme for the purchase of stores, which should be adopted without the least delay. The public have been reminded by the new postal and railway rates how directly they have to pay for each increase in the cost of the great Public Service, and it should not cost more or grow greater than the duties which it performs require.