SPOTLIGHT ON THE PUBLIC SERVICE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 630, 27 July 1951, Page 7

SPOTLIGHT ON THE PUBLIC SERVICE

' Broadcast Series from National Stations

OST New Zealanders take the sort of Public Service we have-day-to-day government by permanent officials -very much for granted. They don’t tealise how few countries have used this sort of public service and that it’s still the normal thing in most states for public officials, to be changed when the government changes. Professor R. S. Parker, Professor of Political Science at Victoria University College, will say something about this in the first of a series of talks to be broadcast soon on

the variety and complexity of the New Zealand Public Service and the way in which it works. About 15 per cent of our breadwinners are directly employed by the central government today, and _ they handle about one-third of our national income. It’s little wonder that with such a vast organisation few citizens know very much about its life and work; but because it is so big and important

we can't afford to be too ignorant about it. That is why these broadcasts have been arranged. In one way or another a New Zealand family in one day may have contact with anything up to a dozen Public Servants who supply services the family really needs, In the talk to follow . Professor | Parker’s, a member of the: Public Service Commission, A. H. O’Keefe, will discuss the variety of activities ,in Government departments, in which there are about a_ thousand distinctly different occupations. He will say something, too, about the growth of Government departments since representative government began in New Zealand. The Land and Income Tax Department has. almost the whole. population (children excepted) as its patrons. How it

collects taxes a representative of the department, L. J. Rathgen, will describe in the third talk. Listeners will probably find that the department emerges from this a little more human than they had thought it before. They may even take a less unfriendly view of income tax inspectors once these are seen as guardians of the honest taxpayer against deficits which the dishonest may cause. The fourth talk, by an economist, about Budgetary control, will refer particularly to the work of the Treasury as accountant for the Public Service at large, and another talk will describe the work of a Government trading department. The relative merits of State and private enterprise remain a live issue in New Zealand. A discussion on this; subject, led on .the one side by. mT. Barnett, Under-Secretary | of Justice, and on the. other by William Machin, of Christchurch, will follow the talks. It will specially consider the fields, such as marketing, transport and. insurance, in which there is between the State and private en rise, Throughout the series listeners will be asked to send in questions about the policy and practice of the Public Service as they affect the general public. These questions will be classified, and the series will wind up with two or more panels, representative of various Government departments, in answers to questions.é These talks and discussions. op the work of the Public Service will be vieard weekly from all YA and YZ stations at 9.15 p.m. on Fridays, starting on August 3,