The Press FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1943. Public Service

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23977, 18 June 1943, Page 4

The Press FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1943. Public Service

An interesting paragraph In the annual report of the Public Service Commissioner raises questions of salary and pension rates in the service. In the past, commissioners have repeatedly urged that the salaries paid to the higher officers, and especially the higher administrative officers, are often lower, on any fair comparison, than their responsibilities and the qualifications required merit. This point is made again: “In many cases administrative officers running large “ and important Government de- “ partments are receiving salaries “ lower than men in outside em- “ ployment responsible for very “ small business concerns.” But on this occasion the commissioner extends the reference to service salaries generally, his experience during the war having shown him that, while many temporary appointments have been necessary, “ suitable men have been m6St “ difficult to obtain at Public Service “ rates of pay.” With creditable frankness, he acknowledges compensating advantages; “ continuity “of employment, more settled ” working-conditions, and other " benefits such as superannuation, “ etc.” Nevertheless, due allowance made for these factors, the commissioner declares unhesitatingly that service rates are “ now “ lagging when compared with out- “ side rates of pay”; and, though this statement will be questioned, it will be found very hard to shake. Finally, the commissioner directs attention to the special difficulty of recruiting professional officers, such as medical men and others filling scientific and technical posts, when the maximum retiring allowancefixed 30 years ago—is £3OO a year. The commissioner is thoroughly well justified in saying all this and in adding that, though the Economic Stabilisation Regulations forbid present action, the problem will have to be seriously considered when Public Service regrading, due last year but postponed till after the war, is undertaken. It ought, in fact, to be considered well before regrading. Any new scale should not emerge from the involved processes of regrading, in which it will be difficult to see the wood for the trees. Regrading should be governed by the new scale. But there is a great dear more to be said; and it is regrettable that the commissioner has not chosen to say it, or has not seen the need to say it, or is debarred from saying it. There is, for example, the question of the astonishing anomalies in the list of salaries paid to the highest officers of the State, particularly In the administrative division. The commissioner mentions that all administrative salaries and all above £765 in other divisions are fixed by Parliamentary appropriation. He does not say that this rpeans that they are fixed at different times and without systematic, comparative review; and that this is why—to give one instance only—the Government Statistician is paid less than the Valuer-General, less than the Government Printer, and about as much as the chief accountant in a middling large retail company. A fact of wider importance is that, although it is the habit of Ministers, in Government after Governn.tnt, to praise the system of non-political control of the Public Service, in fact the commissioner’s control extends only over what is fallaciously called the “ Public Ser- “ vice proper,” the “ public ser- “ vices ” being excluded. But the meaning of an elastic distinction is strained to, breaking point by other reservations, as for instance in the State Advances Corporation Act and in the new External Affairs Act. At the same time commissioner control in i’s limited field still has much less to do with the fundamentals of administrative efficiency than with L. working of a system of grading, payment, and discipline. The point is that commissioner control, incomplete in scope and incomplete in function, is more and more obviously inadequate to a task which is more and more obviously pressing: that is, Public Service, reorganisation. Sooner or later, this task will have to be faced, and the sooner the better. When it is, the first question to be asked will have to be whether the control is to be strengthened and extended in its present form, or whether it should not pass to a new section of the Treasury or of the Interna] Affairs Department. It is significant that, although the annual report of the Public Service Commissioner always and necessarily deals with staffing, it has seldom if ever attacked the problems of recruitment and training with vigour or appeared to recognise that the answer to new administrative needs lies in their solution.