NON-PRODUCTIVE MANPOWER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 16, 14 April 1947, Page 8

NON-PRODUCTIVE MANPOWER

INVESTIGATION SUGGESTED IN ENGLAND Recent statistics, said Lord Reading, in the course of a debate in the House of Lords, showed there were 1,007,000 industrial and non-indus-trial Civil Servants and 1,019,000 in Local Government service, a total of 2,026,000 employed in this type of duty. "If," he said, "man-power is required for greater production, surely there is a field for research to reduce this formidable total of nonproductive man-power."

'Here was a reservoir which should be investigated. If the whole of the manufacturing industries there were 6,845,000 people, compared with more than 2,000,000 employed in national and local Government services together. We could not afford that prodigality indefinitely. Lord Reading, recalling perhaps the adage that "dog does not eat dog" declared it was not sufficient to leave the question of reducing staffs to the goodwill of the Government departments.

Persons must be imported from outside who would "deal with the mater drastically and promptly."

Lord Ammon demurred from the suggestion that the Civil Services was non-productive. The amount of manual labour or manufacture of commodities was no yardstick of production, he said. Lord Chorley replied that the Government was very.well aware of the sttuation and was taking steps to deal with it.

The total non-industrial Civil Service, he pointed out, numbered, on July 1, 709,500. It was much the same now. He believed there had been a slight increase.

This did not satisfy Lord Reading and he suggested that a Cabinet committee be set up immediately to deal with the problem.