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Any form of reporting on staff is subject to defects ; the Commission has tried various systems and examined many more. The greatest difficulty from an administrative viewpoint is to achieve a complete standard of uniformity in marking among local controlling officers and also among Departments. This entails the issue of detailed instructions, including comprehensive statistical data, on standard averages for groups and graphs for distribution of marks. The Commission recognizes that the success of the reporting system depends on the local reporting officers. Most of these officers make an honest assessment of the relative merits of their staff. These assessments in turn have to be correlated into merit lists for whole Departments and then for the whole Service. Obviously, at some points assessments are not perfect and it would be wrong to imagine there can be no cause for complaint. The use of staff committees to correlate the markings of local controlling officers is, however, a further useful safeguard. Both time and thought are being devoted to research on this problem. Some system of regular reporting is necessary, but the Commission's policy is that reports are not the main or only factor in promotion. They represent but one element in the process of assessing the. best applicant for a job. Staff is to be reported on again as at 31st January, 1951. In an endeavour to lessen •the work involved, the Commission proposes to exclude certain basic-grade groups from the marking. Communism Two years ago we reported (H-14,1948, p. 13) that due precautions were being taken against appointing Communists to, or letting them stay in, security positions in the Public Service. These precautions continue. To the best of our knowledge no Communists are, or under existing conditions will be, employed in any security position. They are excluded altogether from the Air, Army, Navy, External Affairs, and Scientific and Industrial Research Departments. The power of the Commission so to act was challenged in the law-courts by Mr. G. M. Deynzer, formerly an officer of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and understood to be —this was not denied by him when an opportunity was given him—a member of the Communist party. He was transferred to the Social Security Department. So far, at the time of preparing this report, the Court's judgment has upheld the Commission's action ; but final judgment has yet to be given by the Court of Appeal. We think that, whatever the judgment, the issue should v be put beyond doubt by legislation. In our 1949 report we recommended that — Clear legislative authority be given to the Commission to move from security positions in the Public Service persons with Communist or like affiliations, and that they should have the right of recourse to the Public Service Board of Appeal against dismissal or reduction in salary. No legislative action was taken ; we now repeat the recommendation. Politics and the Public Service In accordance with the rights conferred by the Political Disabilities Removal Act, 1936, several public servants were candidates for Parliament in the 1949 general election, pledged variously to support the then Government, or the then Opposition and new Government, or, in the case of one fairly senior officer, the Communist party. In keeping, too, with the spirit of that Act, there has been no limit to the permitted party political activity of any public servant. Inasmuch as this issue is for the present virtually closed in New Zealand, both parties in the recent election having promised to make no change, little purpose is to be served in pursuing it here. Whatever the law may allow —it would, for example, be lawful for the head of a Department to contest a seat against his own Minister and, being defeated, to present himself the day after the election as his opponent's principal

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