PRIVATE TENDER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19308, 8 October 1932, Page 5

PRIVATE TENDER

NEW POLICY FOR PUBLIC WORKS

REPORT’S EMPHATIC VIEW. One of the most urgent needs in the reorganisation of the Public Works Department to avoid losses of public money is considered by the National Expenditure Commission to be the substitution of the present system of departmental labour by private contract. The present system is definitel?/ denounced as uneconomic. “It is necessary to consider whether it would not be in the best interests of the Dominion if the system of carrying out public works by day labour under the control of the department were abandoned,” the report says. "Without wishing in any way to impute lack of efficiency to the present organisation, we think that one of the main objections to the system of the State engaging all labour necessary for the carrying out of public works is that it has developed an army of workmen who know no other employer than the State, and for whom it Is increasingly difficult to find employment. We think it very undesirable thta the Government should be the direct employer of men engaged in public works. "If works were let by contract the administrative staff of the Public Works Department could be reduced to a minimum, the expenditure on plant would largely disappear, and the department would escape the work, annoyance and dissatisfaction which result from the fact that every direct employee of the Government considers that he has the right to have his grievances heard by the Government.

"Another disadvantage of the present system is that it is very easy for the Government to start perhaps small works with a view to relieving unemployment in any locality many works which when started are expected to be on a small scale have the disadvantage that as the work proceeds larger avenues of expenditure are opened up, and what may be a small job in the beginning ends up in the expenditure of much larger sums than were originally contemplated. There would not be the same tendency under the contract system, and, moreover, the reversion to such a system should not have an adverse effect on the unemployment situation, for it matters not whether men are employed by a contractor or by the Government.

“A distinct advantage of the contract system would be that a greater degree of certainty with regard to the final cost of construction works would be obtained. That this is a factor of considerable importance is clear from evidence we have obtained as to the estimated cost of various works and the final cost.”