PUBLIC SERVICE.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1923, Page 1

PUBLIC SERVICE.

THE COM Ml SSION Kit’S REPORT. WELLINGTON, Aug. 29. The effect of retrenchment on the stall' under the Public Service Commissioner’s control is shown ill the an liual report of that Department. The number of employees oil March 31 was lifiSli, anti the total annual salaries £'1,7(14,848, thus showing a reduction, in the classified staff during the year of 103, and in salaries of £106,406. The Commissioner remarks that this further reduction to that effected during the period of retrenchment may hr considered as satisfactory, and would have been greater but for the fact that it was necessary to appoint additional officers to certain departments, the principal increases being as follow:—Justice .including Patents) 10. Land and Income Tax 17. Marine 19. Printing and Stationery 16, Treasury 6. The principal increase was in the Marine Department, and resulted from the taking over of Westport harbour bv the Marine Department, the permanent officers of the Westport Mar hour Board becoming permanent members of the public service. Increases in other departments were due to expansion of business. PROMOTION BY MERIT.

The Public Service Act has been in operation ten years, and the Commix sinner claims that there is no doubt that during this period the -efficiency of the service has considerably increased, due principally to the method of recruitment and to recognition of merit. Promotion by merit and by merit alone is regarded bv the Commissioner as the only satisfactory moans of ensuring that men of ability shall receive the benefit to which they are entitled. The general practice has been to subordinate seniority to fitness, but in actual practice it has been found that the human characteristic of sympathy to an old officer lias in some eases led to the question being raised as to whehter the senior officer could carry out the duties, not whether he was best entitled by merit. Efficiency can never be maintained in theservice unless merit is regarded as tie determining factor in all eases. Of one hundred positions in the service in which promotion was involved immediately subsequent to April 1, 1922, in only eighteen eases was the senior officer appointed.

The Commissioner states that there is difficulty in securing suitable lads as cadets in tile public service,* one handicap being that those who remain in a secondary school two or throe years only obtain the same commencing salary, C‘7o, as a lad who entered at fifteen or sixteen. It is suggested that this scale should bn amended, so that a lad of seventeen should commence at £BS, and so on.