CIVIL SERVICE PENSIONS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 204, 25 August 1873, Page 4

CIVIL SERVICE PENSIONS.

There has hitherto been a general and very natural feeling of dissatisfaction with the system of granting pensions to superannuated officers of the Civil Service, one of the chief objections being that there was no apparent limit to the demands that might be made upon the Colonial Treasury in satisfaction of the claims of retiring officers. A Civil Service Committee was appointed by the House to enquire into this and other matters connected with the service, and a report signed by Mr Yogel as chairman, has been brought up and printed, for public information. It will be seen that a recommendation is made, and ■which is likely to become law, that the annual payments from the public funds on account of pensions are not to exceed £9,000 in the aggregate, but that a fund is to be established by deducting a certain amount from the salaries of the officers. The following is an extract from the report : — " The Committee have arrived at the following conclusions :— l. That in computing the claim to Pensions which remained after the passing of * The Civil Service Act Amendment Act, 1871," it is in accordance with the meaning and intention of that Act, that such computation should be based on the salaries to which the officers were entitled, or were receiving, at and previous to the date of the passing of the Act. 2. That the colony should continue liable (without making any deduction in aid from the salaries of the Civil Servants) for all pensions to which Officers who entered the Service previous to the passing of "The Civil Service Act Amendment Act, 1871," may become entitled under the Civil Service Acts of 1858, 1861, 1866, and 1871 : Provided that such pensions shall be computed on the basis of the salaries received by the officers, or to which they were entitled, on and before the passing of the Act. 3. That it be provided by Act, that the Governor shall not grant any fresh Pension or Pensions under the Acts mentioned in Resolution No. 2, the payment of which would cause the annual payments on account of Pensions under those Acts, to exceed the sum of £9000, unless his Excellency shall be satisfied that, within the spirit and intention of the Acts, he cannot refuse to grant a Pension or Pensions, the payment of which would cause the annual sum of £9000 to be exceeded. 4. That the Pensions System, on conditions similar to those provided in '• The Civil Service Act, 1866," be revived, and that (commencing -from the Ist January, 1874) an amount equal to 21 per cent, be deducted from the salaries of all officers who have joined the Service since the passing of •' The Civil Service Act Amendment Act, 1871," and from all increases of the salaries of the officers who were in the Service at that date; and that such deductions, with the accretions of interest thereon, constitute a fund out of which pensions shall be paid to all officers who have joined the Service since the passing of the said Act, and to all officers in the Service previous to that time, upon the basis only of the increases to their salaries since that date. Should the fund at any time prove insufficient, the balance to be defrayed by a pro rata contribution from all officers entitled to pensions."