SPEEDIER PROMOTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1939, Page 4

SPEEDIER PROMOTION

AND EARLIER RETIREMENT. ADVOCATED BY POLICE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A decision to make a determined effort to have the retiring age for members of the police force reduced from 65 to 60 was made at the annual conference in Wellington of the New Zealand Police Association. It was said that in every other police force in the British Empire men were retired five to ten years sooner than in New Zealand, and it was maintained that it was not in the public interest to expect constables to carry on till they were 65 years of age. In most departments, public servants were now retired after having 40 years’ service, and it was an extraordinary anomaly that that rule should not have been made effective in the police force, where physical fitness was the first essential, said speakers. As in other branches of the Public Service, the slowness of promotion was causing great concern to members of all ranks in the Police Association, and the retention of men with over 40 years' service occasioned a great deal of dissatisfaction.

One speaker observed that a man had to serve for more than 30 years in the force before he reached commissioned rank, and even to obtain his first promotion (from constable to sergeant) a man had to serve 16 years or more.

Earlier retirement was regarded as the first essential in obtaining a younger police force, which the delegates thought was needed in the interests both of the men themselves and of the public.